Photoluminescence Characterization of SiGe/Si Quantum-Well Wire Structures

ABSTRACTLow-temperature photoluminescence measurements were performed in order to probe the optical quality of SiGe/Si quantum-well wire structures fabricated by electron-beam lithography and subsequent reactive ion etching, having the patterned polymethylmethacrylate resist as an etch mask. In addition, one set of quantum-well wire structures was post-treated by means of annealing in a hydrogen environment. Our results show that even for the smallest wires of about 100nm in width, the wires exhibit phonon-resolved photoluminescence spectra, similar to that from the molecular beam eptitaxially grown SiGe single quantum well which was used as starting material for the patterning process. After the patterning process a new sharp peak appears in the photoluminescence spectra at 0.97eV in photon energy. Our investigation suggests that this feature is introduced by damage during the patterning process and most probably identical to the G-line, which previously was identified as originating from the dicarbon centre (substitutional carbon-interstitial carbon) in Si. This centre is known to be a very common endproduct of irradiating Si near room temperature which is the case at our patterning process.