Nanoscale metal-InGaAs contacts with ultra-low specific contact resistivity: Improved interfacial quality and extraction methodology

To enable heterogeneous integration of InGaAs based transistors with Si complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) devices, metal contacts to n(+)-InGaAs need to have high thermal stability for CMOS process compatibility and ultra-low contact resistance to achieve good device performance. In this work, n(+)-InGaAs contacts with ultra-low contact resistivity rho(c) based on refractory metals such as molybdenum (Mo) were realized. Use of refractory metal contacts achieves good thermal stability. An improved process that eliminates oxide between the metal and n(+)-InGaAs by using an in situ Ar+-plasma treatment prior to metal deposition achieves ultra-low rho(c). Furthermore, a nano-scale transmission line method (nano-TLM) structure with significantly reduced parasitic leakage was designed and fabricated to improve the rho(c) extraction accuracy. The improved test structure introduces a SiO2 isolation layer between Mo and InGaAs outside the active or mesa region to eliminate a parallel leakage path that is present in other nano-TLM structures reported in the literature. Published by AIP Publishing.