Fabrication of strained Si on an ultrathin SiGe-on-insulator virtual substrate with a high-Ge fraction

A promising fabrication method for a Si1-xGex-on-insulator (SGOI) virtual substrate and evaluation of strain in the Si layer on this SGOI substrate are presented. A 9-nm-thick SGOI layer with x =0.56 was formed by dry oxidation after epitaxial growth Of Si0.92Ge0.08 on a silicon-on-insulator substrate. During the oxidation, Ge atoms were rejected from the surface oxide layer and condensed in the remaining SGOI layer, which was partially relaxed without introducing a significant amount of dislocations. It is found from the analysis of the Raman spectra that the strained Si layer grown on the SGOI layer involves a tensile strain of 1%. This strained Si on the SGOI structure is applicable to sub-100-nm metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.