On the solubility and diffusivity of the intrinsic point defects in germanium

There is a strong interest to use germanium as an active device layer in deep sub-micron devices. This imposes similar stringent material and process requirements for germanium as for silicon. Lattice defect formation during crystal growth and device processing as well as dopant diffusion and activation are to a large extent controlled by the intrinsic point defects in the semiconductor. The properties of the vacancy and the self-interstitial in germanium are, however, not well known. The scarce available experimental data are combined with ab initio and molecular-dynamics calculations and other published simulation results. Based on this a best estimate is made for the formation and migration energies of the vacancy and the self-interstitial in germanium. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.