Investigation of Doping Processes to Achieve Highly Doped Czochralski Germanium Ingots

Highly doped germanium (HD-Ge) is a promising material for mid-infrared detectors, bio-sensors, and other devices. Bulk crystals with a doping concentration higher than 10(18) cm(-3) would be desirable for such device fabrication technologies. Hence, an effective method needs to be developed to dope germanium (Ge) ingots in the Czochralski (Cz) growth process. In this study, a total of 5 ingots were grown by the Cz technique: two undoped Ge ingots as a reference and three doped ingots with 10(18), 10(19) , and 10(20) atoms/cm(3) respectively. To obtain a uniform p-type doping concentration along the crystal, co-doping of boron-gallium (B-Ga) via the Ge feed material was also attempted. Both B and Ga are p-type dopants, but with a large difference in their segregation behavior (contrary segregation profile) in Ge, and hence it is expected that the incorporation of dopants in the crystal would be uniform along the crystal length. The distribution of the dopants followed the Scheil-predicted profile. The etch pit density maps of the grown crystals showed an average dislocation density in the order of 10(5) cm(-2). No increase in the overall etch pit count was observed with increasing dopant concentration in the crystal. The grown highly doped Ge crystals have a good structural quality as confirmed by x-ray diffraction rocking curve measurements.

Automated summary

Highly doped germanium (HD-Ge) is a promising material for various devices, and an effective method of doping germanium ingots in the Czochralski growth process needs to be developed. In this study, highly doped Ge crystals were grown by the Cz technique and the distribution of dopants followed the predicted profile. The crystals showed good structural quality as confirmed by x-ray diffraction rocking curve measurements.