Opto-Electronic Review

Advances 2018, Vol. 1, No. 3

DOI: 10.29026/oea.2018.180004

Germanium-tin alloys: applications for optoelectronics in

mid-infrared spectra
Cizhe Fang1, Yan Liu1, Qingfang Zhang2, Genquan Han1*, Xi Gao1, Yao Shao3, Jincheng Zhang1
and Yue Hao1

We summarize our work of the optoelectronic devices based on Germanium-tin (GeSn) alloys assisted with the Si3N4
liner stressor in mid-infrared (MIR) domains. The device characteristics are thoroughly analyzed by the strain distribution,
band structure, and absorption characteristics. Numerical and analytical methods show that with optimal structural pa-
rameters, the device performance can be further improved and the wavelength application range can be extended to 2~5
μm in the mid-infrared spectra. It is demonstrated that this proposed strategy provides an effective technique for the
strained-GeSn devices in future optical designs, which will be competitive for the optoelectronics applications in
mid-infrared wavelength.

Keywords: optoelectronics; germanium-tin alloys; mid-infrared spectra

Fang C Z, Liu Y, Zhang Q F, Han G Q, Gao X et al. Germanium-tin alloys: applications for optoelectronics in mid-infrared spectra.
Opto-Electronic Advances 1, 180004 (2018).

GeSn have been fabricated13,18, including photodetectors

Introduction and lasers with a response up to 2 μm.
It is known to all that Group IV semiconductors have However, there is a trade-off between high Sn compo-
been widely applied in electronic devices due to their sition and direct bandgap in GeSn based devices due to
compatibility with mature complementary metal-oxide- the fact that solid solubility resulting from high Sn com-
semiconductor (CMOS) technologies and excellent elec- position would be destructive to the overall function of
tronic transport properties. However, low luminous effi- the optoelectronic device19. Furthermore, the thermal
ciency caused by their indirect-bandgap limits their ap- stability of GeSn film caused by high Sn content becomes
plications in photonic functional devices. Recently, a new an obstacle to device fabrication20-24. By inducing a tensile
technology based on incorporating Sn into Ge has trig- strain into GeSn alloys, the Sn composition can be re-
gered a tremendous interest for the accessibility of the duced to achieve direct bandgap compared with the re-
direct bandgap material1-6. The pioneering work has been laxed one2,25,26, benefiting their light emission efficien-
made by R. Soref and C. H. Perry in ref. 7. After that, sub- cy27,28. Therefore, silicon nitride (SiNx) films are used as
sequent theoretical studies8-11 revealed that an indirect- an external stressor to induce tensile or compressive
bandgap material can be tuned to be a direct-bandgap strain into semiconductor29-32, which poses a strategy to
one by increasing the substitutional Sn concentration in improve the optical performance of the strained
the Ge lattice. Moreover, the incorporation of Sn in the GeSn-based structures.
Ge lattice not only yields significant red shifts in the band We sum up the work of different kinds of optoelec-
gap energies but also makes it a possible candidate as the tronic devices based on GeSn alloys with the assistance of
gain medium12,13, which indicates the potential applica- the Si3N4 liner stressor. Analytical calculations show that
tions of photonics in the mid-infrared (MIR) regions14-17. the tensile strain induced by Si3N4 liner in GeSn contrib-
Up to now, different kinds of efficient devices based on utes to both device performance and the extension of

1
Wide Bandgap Semiconductor Technology Disciplines State Key Laboratory, School of Microelectronics, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, China;
2
Key Laboratory for Informatization Electrical Appliances of Henan Province, School of Electric and Information Engineering, Zhengzhou Univer-
sity of Light Industry, Zhengzhou 450002, China; 3State Key Laboratory of Power Grid Security and Energy Conservation, China Electric Power
Research Institute, Beijing 100192, China
* Correspondence: G Q Han, E-mail: [email protected]
Received 6 March 2018; accepted 10 April 2018; accepted article preview online 12 April 2018

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© 2018 Institute of Optics and Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
 Opto-Electronic Advances DOI: 10.29026/oea.2018.180004

optical absorption spectrum. It is demonstrated that the contrast to relaxed GeSn, the EG,Г is obviously reduced in
proposed strategy could expand the application spectrum tensile strained GeSn because there is a decline in the
of group IV based devices, which will find important ap- energy of Г conduction valleys. It is clear that the EG,Г of
plications in the novel optoelectronic applications. tensile strained GeSn in pillar detector exhibits a larger
attenuation than that of fin detector. The impacts of geo-
Device design and characteristic metric parameters on the energy band structure in fin
and pillar detectors are discussed in detail in ref. 33.
Photodetector What’s more, the impact of Sn content on the E-k energy
It is worth noting that employing the tensile strained band for relaxed and tensile strained GeSn is analyzed in
GeSn alloys achieves a material with improved absorption ref. 26. It is concluded that by utilizing the Si3N4 liner
coefficient α in MIR ranging, which provides an effective stressor, the EG,Г of GeSn alloy can be reduced, which is
technique for extending the absorption edge of GeSn to potential to extend the cutoff wavelength of various pho-
mid-infrared wavelength. Here, we discuss three tonic devices into the MIR region.
photodetectors based on different strained GeSn archi- In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed
tectures. Figure 1(a) shows a conceptual illustration of the photodetectors, we calculate the absorption coefficient α,
GeSn on Si on oxide undercladding pedestal (SOUP) a key parameter for determining the detection spectrum
waveguide. The 3-D schematics of GeSn pillar and fin of the detector, by equation (1) 34:
array detectors are shown in Fig. 1(b) and 1(c), respec- 3
tively. The tensile strain is introduced in the GeSn mate-  b 2 2 1

rial by the Si3N4 liner stressor.  ( )= (  EG ,  ) 2 , (1)

(2π)  2 2
To better analyze the influence of the strain on the en-
ergy band, the E-k energy band diagrams of the relaxed where  is the reduced Plank constant h / 2π ,  is
and tensile strained Ge0.90Sn0.10 in three different detectors the angular frequency, and μ is the reduced mass, which
are plotted and compared in Fig. 2. It is observed that in can be calculated by memh / (me  mh ) . The electron and

Metal
a Doped Metal b Lpillar c Metal
+ contact
p GeSn
Intrinsic Ge0.90Sn0.10 contact Tfin contact
Ge0.90Sn0.10
Si waveguide n fin
GeS
GeSn pillar

liner Si3N4
Stress

eSn
p G
+
ss
Undoped

Si 3N 4 Stre i N 4
GeSn

S3
liner or oped
lin er
d Si stres
s n+
Ge
n+
Ge Und Sn
Burie S
G nb G Sn Ge
Si h e Si e-VS uffer Si e-VSbuffer
and oxid (00
(00
1)
le w 1)
afe
r

Fig. 1 | 3D schematics of the designed GeSn photodetectors based on different architectures. (a) GeSn on SOUP waveguide integrated
with the Si3N4 liner stressor. Three-dimensional schematics of GeSn detectors with (b) pillar and (c) fin array integrated with the Si3N4 liner
stressor on Si platform. Figure reproduced from: (a) ref. 26, Optical Society of America; (b, c) ref. 33, IEEE.

a 0.8 b 0.8 c 0.8 d 0.8

Γ
0.4 0.4 Γ
 0.4 0.4
Γ
Energy (eV)

Energy (eV)

Energy (eV)

Energy (eV)

 Γ

Unstrained Strained Strained Strained
Ge0.90Sn0.10 Ge0.90Sn0.10 Ge0.90Sn0.10 Ge0.90Sn0.10 on
fin pillar SOUP waveguide
0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
HH HH HH HH
LH LH LH LH
SO SO SO SO
-0.4 -0.4 -0.4 -0.4

-1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0
[111] k (1/nm) [001] [111] k (1/nm) [001] [111] k (1/nm) [001] [111] k (1/nm) [001]

Fig. 2 | E-k energy band diagrams of relaxed and strained GeSn devices. (a) Relaxed Ge0.90Sn0.10. (b) Tensile strained Ge0.90Sn0.10 in fin
array detector with the Lpillar of 200 nm. (c) Tensile strained Ge0.90Sn0.10 in pillar array detector with the Lpillar of 200 nm. (d) Tensile strained
Ge0.90Sn0.10 on SOUP waveguide. Figure reproduced from: (a, b, c) ref. 33, IEEE; (d) ref. 26, Optical Society of America.

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© 2018 Institute of Optics and Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
 Opto-Electronic Advances DOI: 10.29026/oea.2018.180004

hole effective masses ( me and mh ) are extracted from E-k redshift. It should also be noted that the cut-off wave-
energy band diagrams based on lengths are extended to be 4.35 μm with the Lpillar of 100
1 d2 E nm. As shown in Fig. 3(b), we investigate the impact of
m  ( 2  2 )1 . the Sn content on the cut-off wavelengths of both the
 dk
The  b is given by relaxed and strained devices. A significant redshift of ab-
sorption edge can be obtained in the strained devices.
2πe2 EG ,  ( EG ,   )
b  . (2) Furthermore, the cut-off wavelength performs a greater
2 improvement with a larger Sn composition. All the en-
3n 0cme ( EG ,   )
3 hancements in the cut-off wavelength can be speculated
In equation (2), n is the refractive index, ε0 is the vac- that there is an attenuation in the EG,Г of GeSn.
uum permittivity, c is the velocity of light, me is the elec-
tron mass, and  is the spin-orbit splitting. Optical modulators
Figure 3(a) shows that the calculated absorption coeffi- In this section, we theoretically investigate tensile
cient α is modeled as a function of optical wavelength for strained GeSn electro-absorption modulator based on the
relaxed and strained Ge0.90Sn0.10 in fin and pillar array Franz-Keldysh (FK) effect. As depicted in Fig. 4, α is
detectors with different geometric parameters. It can be modeled as a function of wavelength for tensile strained
clearly seen that the optical response spectra of both GeSn waveguide modulators with different Sn content,
strained Ge0.90Sn0.10 fin and pillar detectors are wider than which is calculated by ref. 26. During simulation, the in-
that of relaxed detector. Besides, the pillar detector exhib- tensity of electric field varies from 0 to 10 MV/m at a step
its a larger cutoff frequency than fin detector when Lpillar of 2 MV/m. Although Sn composition is different, the
and Tfin are equal. With the decrease in fin and pillar di- cut-off wavelength of all materials redshifts to MIR spec-
mensions, the cut-off wavelengths display an obvious tra range with the increase in the magnitude of electric

a Unstrained b Unstrained Ge0.97Sn0.03 Tensile strained Ge0.97Sn0.03

Strained fin 500 nm Strained pillar 500 nm Unstrained Ge0.95Sn0.05 Tensile strained Ge0.95Sn0.05
Strained fin 400 nm Strained pillar 400 nm Unstrained Ge0.90Sn0.10 Tensile strained Ge0.90Sn0.10
104 Strained fin 300 nm Strained pillar 300 nm 104
Strained fin 200 nm Strained pillar 200 nm
Absorption coefficient α (cm-1)

Absorption coefficient α (cm-1)

Strained fin 100 nm Strained pillar 100 nm

103
103

102 102
2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 1 2 3 4
Wavelength λ (μm) Wavelength λ (μm)

Fig. 3 | (a) Comparisons of the absorption spectra of relaxed and strained GeSn in fin and pillar array detectors at the Sn content of 0.1. Lpillar
and Tfin feature size varys from 100 nm to 500 nm in a step of 100 nm. (b) Calculated absorption spectra for relaxed and tensile strained GeSn
waveguide photodetectors at different Sn content. Figure reproduced from: (a) ref. 33, IEEE; (b) ref. 26, Optical Society of America.

a b c
104 104 104
Tensile strained Tensile strained Tensile strained
Absorption coefficient α (cm-1)

Absorption coefficient α (cm-1)

Absorption coefficient α (cm-1)

Ge0.97Sn0.03 Ge0.95Sn0.05 Ge0.90Sn0.10

103 103 103

0, 2, 4, 6, 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 0, 2, 4, 6, 8,
8, and 10 and 10 and 10
MV/m MV/m MV/m
102 102 102

101 101 101

1.8 2.0 2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 2.2 2.6 3.0 3.4 3 4 5 6
Wavelength λ (μm) Wavelength λ (μm) Wavelength λ (μm)

Fig. 4 | Modeled α as a function of wavelength at different electric fields at (a) Ge0.97Sn0.03, (b) Ge0.95Sn0.05, and (c) Ge0.9Sn0.1,
respectively. Figure reproduced from ref. 26, Optical Society of America.

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© 2018 Institute of Optics and Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
 Opto-Electronic Advances DOI: 10.29026/oea.2018.180004

filed. Furthermore, it is found that the cut-off wavelength length. The propagation loss increases along with the
increases along with Sn content. To explore the optical wavelength since the optical field becomes weakly con-
transmission properties, here we employ the 2D fi- fined in the waveguide, which corresponds to the mode
nite-different time-domain (FDTD) method to model the profiles in Fig. 5. Moreover, for a fixed wavelength, the
Ge0.90Sn0.10 waveguide modulator. Mode profiles of trans- propagation loss increases with the increase of applied
verse electric (TE) and transverse magnetic (TM) modes electric field due to the FK effect, which results in an en-
in the tensile strained Ge0.90Sn0.10 waveguide modulator hancement in the modulation depth of GeSn waveguide
are plotted at different wavelengths in Fig. 5. The refrac- electro-absorption modulator.
tive indexes for Ge0.90Sn0.10, Si3N4 and SiO2 are all extract-
ed from ref. 35. Remarkably, single mode transmission can Lasers
be observed in the waveguide for all the cases. Im- Accessibility of the direct bandgap material makes GeSn a
portantly, there is a leakage of light from waveguide with decent alternative to Si in the functional photonic plat-
the increase in wavelength. In order to gain a deeper un- form, which helps to realize a monolithically integrated
derstanding on the optical transmission characteristics, laser. A GeSn/SiGeSn multiple quantum well (MQW)
the propagation loss versus wavelength is calculated for laser wrapped in Si3N4 liner stressor is proposed and in-
the tensile strained Ge0.90Sn0.10 waveguide under different vestigated, as described in Fig. 7. The laser performances
electric fields in Fig. 6. For both TE and TM modes, it are thoroughly analyzed by Sn composition, injected car-
shows a strong dependence of propagation loss on wave- rier density ninjected, and quantum well number nwell. It is

a TE mode b TE mode c TE mode d TM mode e TM mode f TM mode

λ=4.25 μm λ=4.50 μm λ=4.75 μm λ=4.25 μm λ=4.50 μm λ=4.75 μm
Si3N4 Si3N4 Si3N4 Si3N4 Si3N4 Si3N4

SiO2 SiO2 SiO2 SiO2 SiO2 SiO2

Fig. 5 | Mode profiles of both TE and TM modes at different wavelengths in Ge0.90Sn0.10 waveguide. Figure reproduced from ref. 26,
Optical Society of America.

a b
103 103
Propagation loss (dB/cm)

Propagation loss (dB/cm)

102 102

101 101
TE mode TM mode
λ=4.25 μm λ=4.25 μm
100 100
λ=4.50 μm λ=4.50 μm
λ=4.75 μm λ=4.75 μm
10-1 10-1
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10
Electric field F (MV/m) Electric field F (MV/m)

Fig. 6 | Propagation loss of (a) TE mode and (b) TM mode in tensile strained Ge0.90Sn0.10 waveguide at various biases. Figure reproduced
from ref. 26, Optical Society of America.

Diameter: 5 μm
200 nm p+ Si1-y-zGeySnz
Stress liner
Metal MQW
Si3N4
contact

600 nm n+ Si1-y-zGeySnz
n + Ge
Z [001]

0] buffe 1-t Snt

01 r (t>x Ge1-xSnx well
y[ )
n+ Ge-VS
10 nm Si1-y-zGeySnz barrier
Si (001
) substr 7 nm Ge1-xSnx well
X [10
0] ate
Si1-y-zGeySnz barrier
Ge1-xSnx well

Fig. 7 | 3D schematic of the Ge1-xSnx/Si1-y-zGeySnz MQW laser wrapped in a Si3N4 liner stressor. Figure reproduced from ref. 36, IEEE.

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© 2018 Institute of Optics and Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
 Opto-Electronic Advances DOI: 10.29026/oea.2018.180004

demonstrated that the threshold current density Jth re- current density J for the relaxed and tensile strained
duces from 476 to 168 A/cm2 and the optical gain is im- Ge0.90Sn0.10/Si0.161Ge0.695Sn0.144 MQW lasers, as shown in Fig.
proved obviously, by introducing the Si3N4 liner stressor. 9(b). The calculation results indicate that J decreases sig-
To analyze the impact of the Si3N4 liner stressor on the nificantly to achieve a same α for the strained Ge0.90Sn0.10
GeSn/SiGeSn MQW laser, strain distributions on the device. It should also be noted that compared to the
normal and radial cross section planes are plotted in Fig. Ge0.90Sn0.10/Si0.161Ge0.695Sn0.144 laser, Ge0.96Sn0.04/
8. The strain along [100], [010], and [001] directions in Si0.274Ge0.611Sn0.115 device performs an improved J under
the normal cross section plane are denoted by ε[100], ε[010], the same tensile strain, indicating the influence of the Sn
and ε[001], respectively. The strain contour plots indicate component.
that [100] and [010] directions are under a tensile strain To better understand the impact of the gain medium
while ε[001] is compressive. At the center of the GeSn layer on photoluminescence inside the cavity, a brief introduc-
of GeSn/SiGeSn MQW laser, it can be seen that the values tion is presented from the energy band structure. The
of ε[100], ε[010], and ε[001] are 0.85%, 0.85%, and -0.77%, re- subband energy difference between EΓ and EL is defined
spectively. as ΔE. Here, EΓ and EL are the energies of the ground
As shown in Fig. 9(a) and 9(b), the threshold current sub-band levels of Γ and L valleys, respectively. Large
density Jth and optical gain α in GeSn/SiGeSn lasers are density of the states concentrates in L-bandedge due to
modeled as a function of Sn composition in GeSn wells the fact that the effective mass is large. It is recognized
and injected current density, respectively. Here, Lz is the that injected carriers occupy firstly lower energy states.
thickness of the potential well. By introducing the tensile Consequently, there is a larger carrier leakage for large ΔE
strain, there is an obvious attenuation in the Jth in and a small value of ΔE of the material is preferable to
Ge0.90Sn0.10/Si0.161Ge0.695Sn0.144 MQW laser. It can be clearly increase the gain. Energy band structure and carrier dis-
seen that the Jth decreases from 476 to 168 A/cm2 at a Sn tribution in GeSn/SiGeSn MQW are discussed in detail in
content of 0.1. For comparison, the values of ΓMQW,TE·gГ-HH ref. 36. According to the discussion above, under tensile
and ΓMQW,TM·gГ-LH are calculated as a function of injected strain, the band structure is changed. During the injec-

a ε[100] in GeSn well

Si3N4 Strain
d ε[100] in GeSn well
0.4%
0.6% 0.8% 500 nm Si3N4 0.8%
0.8% 0.8%
0.4%
0.4% 0.6% 0.4%

0.6% 0
0.4% Relaxed GeSn

-0.4%

b ε[010] in GeSn well

-0.8%
Si3N4
e ε[010] in GeSn well
0.8%
0.6%
0.6%

500 nm Si3N4

0.8%
0.4%

0.6%
0.4%

Relaxed GeSn

c ε[001] in GeSn well

Si3N4
f ε[001] in GeSn well
-0.4%
-0.8% 500 nm Si3N4
-0.2%
- -0.4%
-0.6% -0.8%

-0.6%
-0.2%
Relaxed GeSn

Fig. 8 | Contour plots for (a) ε[100], (b) ε[010], and (c) ε[001] in the normal cross section plane and (d) ε[100], (e) ε[010], and (f) ε[001] in the radial
cross section plane in GeSn well for the Ge0.90Sn0.10/Si0.161Ge0.695Sn0.144 MQW laser wrapped in a 500 nm Si3N4 liner stressor. Figure
reproduced from ref. 36, IEEE.

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© 2018 Institute of Optics and Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
 Opto-Electronic Advances DOI: 10.29026/oea.2018.180004

a b 104
Relaxed Ge0.90Sn0.10/
Lz=7 nm Si0.161Ge0.695Sn0.144 device
nwell=20 Strained Ge0.96Sn0.04/
Si0.274Ge0.611Sn0.115 device
101 103
Strained Ge0.90Sn0.10/
Jth (kA/cm2)

Si0.161Ge0.695Sn0.144 device

α (kcm-1)
Unstrained lasers 102

Lz=7 nm
100
nwell=20
101
λ=2.3 μm
λ=2.3 μm
Lasers wrapped in 500 nm
Si3N4 liner stressor λ=3.1 μm
10-1 100
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
x in Ge1-xSnx well (%) Current density J (kA/cm2)

Fig. 9 | (a) Modeled Jth as a function of the Sn composition in GeSn wells for relaxed and tensile strained GeSn/SiGeSn MQW lasers wrapped
in a 500 nm Si3N4 liner stressor. Lz is 7 nm and nwell is 20. (b) Modeled optical gain α as a function of injected current density J for the relaxed
and tensile strained MQW lasers. Figure reproduced from ref. 36, IEEE.

tion of carriers, the population inversion between the Fig. 10.

sub-bandgap Esub-G in GeSn wells occurs for the increase The values of ε[100], ε[010], and ε[001], and volume strains
of electron occupation probability in Γ conduction valley, in the central region for intrinsic GeSn layers are deter-
which contributes to the improvement of light emission mined by the finite element method (FEM), which are
performance in lasers. It is believed that the Sn composi- extracted and compared in Fig. 11(a). One can see that
tions at well layers and the strain should be carefully de- there is no more change in the strain distribution. Figure
signed to achieve a large optical gain. 11(b) gives the EG,Γ and EG,L of the relaxed and strained
GeSn with different Sn compositions. It can be observed
Light-emitting diode that under the tensile strain, the energy of the Γ conduc-
In consideration of few experimental studies on the ten- tion valley and L conduction valley declines with the in-
sile strained GeSn light emitters up to date, we theoreti- crease in Sn content. It should also be noted that the en-
cally design and analyze a GeSn/SiGeSn double ergy of the Γ conduction valley decreases more signifi-
heterostructure (DH) light emitting diode (LED) with a cantly than that of the L conduction valley, which leads to
microdisk structure wrapped in Si3N4. The impacts of Sn a decline of Sn content required for achieving the direct
content on strain distributions and energy band structure bandgap.
are thoroughly analyzed. Moreover, the analysis of simu- Since the light-emitting performance of the devices is
lation results shows that the spontaneous emission rate rsp dependent on rsp and ηIQE, we first focus on rsp. Detailed
and the internal quantum efficiency ηIQE can be improved calculation of rsp per unit volume in the energy and ηIQE
by increasing Sn composition, carrier injection density can be seen in the ref. 37. As depicted in Fig. 12, the total
ninjected, and n-type doping concentration ndoping in the spontaneous emission spectra of the proposed device are
GeSn active layer. The 3D schematic of a GeSn/SiGeSn plotted under different conditions. Considering that there
DH LED with a microdisk device architecture is shown in are two valence bands (e.g. a light hole (LH) band and a

Diameter: 4 μm Liner stressor

Si3N4

200 nm p+ Si1-z-yGezSny
Metal
250 nm intrinsic Ge1-xSnx
contact
200 nm n+ Si1-z-yGezSny
Z [001]

0 ] n+ Ge1-xSnx buffer (t>x)

01
y[ n+ Ge-VS
Si (001
) substr
X [10 ate
Z

0]

Fig. 10 | 3D schematic of lattice-matched GeSn/SiGeSn DH LED wrapped in a Si3N4 liner stressor. Figure reproduced from ref. 37, Optical
Society of America.

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© 2018 Institute of Optics and Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
 Opto-Electronic Advances DOI: 10.29026/oea.2018.180004

heavy hole (HH) band), rsp,LH and rsp,HH are calculated, spectra of the strained GeSn increase with the Sn content.
respectively, corresponding to two peaks in the sponta- With the same doping condition, a rapid increase in the
neous emission spectrum. Compared to the relaxed one, intensity can be observed in Fig. 12(c), suggesting the
rsp can be improved markedly in the strained device. Fig- similar impact of Sn content and ninjected on the strength of
ure 12(b) compares the total spontaneous emission spec- spontaneous emission rate. Besides, it is worth noting
tra with different Sn compositions. It can be clearly seen that the increases of Sn composition and ninjected bring
that with the same ninjected, the spontaneous emission about an opposite shift of peak position. That is, the red-
1.0
a b EG,Γ in relaxed GeSn

0.8 EG,L in relaxed GeSn

GeSn EG,Γ and EG,L (eV)

EG,Γ in GeSn wrapped in 300 nm Si3N4
0.8
EG,L in GeSn wrapped in 300 nm Si3N4
Strain (%)

ε[100] ε[010]
0.6 0.6
ε[001] εvolume

-0.6
0.4

-0.8
4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10
Sn composition in GeSn (%) Sn composition (%)

Fig. 11 | (a) Modeled strain components as a function of Sn composition in the intrinsic GeSn layer. (b) Comparison of EG,Γ and EG,L in relaxed
and strained GeSn with various Sn compositions. Figure reproduced from ref. 37, Optical Society of America.

6 6
a b
18 -3 GeSn devices wrapped
ninjected=110 cm 5
5 in 300 nm Si3N4
Spontaneous emission rate
Spontaneous emission rate

ndoping=0 cm-3
rsp (1026eV-1cm-3s-1)
rsp (1026eV-1cm-3s-1)

4 ninjected=11018 cm-3
4
ndoping=0 cm-3
3 3
Ge0.90Sn0.10 device wrapped
Ge0.90Sn0.10
in 300 nm Si3N4
2 2

1 1
Ge0.92Sn0.08
Unstrained
device
0 0
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8
Photon energy (eV) Photon energy (eV)

6 6
c Ge0.90Sn0.10 device wrapped d
Ge0.90Sn0.10 devices wrapped
in 300 nm Si3N4
5 5 in 300 nm Si3N4
Spontaneous emission rate

Spontaneous emission rate

rsp (1026eV-1cm-3s-1)

rsp (1026eV-1cm-3s-1)

ndoping=0 cm-3 ninjected=11018 cm-3

4 4

ninjected=
3 3 ndoping=
51018 cm-3
11018 cm-3
2 2

1 1
ninjected=
ndoping=0 cm-3
11018 cm-3
0 0
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8
Photon energy (eV) Photon energy (eV)

Fig. 12 | Calculated spontaneous emission spectra for the direct transition of GeSn in the lattice-matched GeSn/SiGeSn DHLEDs (a)
under different strain status, (b) with different Sn compositions, (c) with different ninjected, and (d) with various ndoping. For all the
curves, the stronger and weaker peaks represent rsp,HH and rsp,LH, respectively. Figure reproduced from ref. 37, Optical Society of America.

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© 2018 Institute of Optics and Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
 Opto-Electronic Advances DOI: 10.29026/oea.2018.180004

shift is caused by increasing Sn composition while the L valleys (ne,Γ+ne,L). The impacts of ninjected and ndoping on
blueshift results from improved ninjected. Figure 12(d) de- ηIQE are investigated and shown in Fig. 13(b) and 13(c). It
scribes the impact of ndoping on rsp, which shows that rsp seems that ηIQE shows similar ninjected-depengence and
can exhibit an enhancement with the increase in the ndoping-dependence like rsp. That is, the increase of ninjected
n-type doping concentration ndoping. and ndoping can also improve ηIQE of the devices.
As another key factor to evaluate the light-emitting
performance of the devices, the ηIQE is calculated as a Outlook and summary
function of Sn composition in Fig. 13. The defect-limited In the last part of this section, we will briefly discuss the
carrier lifetime is denoted by τSRH, which can be increased possible future avenues in GeSn material. Considering
by improving the material quality of GeSn. It seems that that band gap can be adjusted by adding Sn content, GeSn
ηIQE can be improved along with Sn content in GeSn layer material can be applied for light emitting devices, includ-
and the devices with a large τSRH achieve an enhancement ing laser and LED. It has been reported that the related
in ηIQE compared to those with a small τSRH. It can be seen work is underway in laser38-40 and light emission41-43.
from Fig. 13(a) that ηIQE of DH LEDs is enhanced signifi- However, most of work is just focused on optical pump-
cantly after introducing tensile strain for the increase of ing at low temperature and the luminous efficiency is low.
ne,Γ/ne,total in the tensile strained GeSn. Here, the total GeSn material with direct bandgap leads to a small band
electron concentration ne,total is the sum of those in Γ and gap (i.e., ~0.56 eV), which limits its applications in optical
communication44. Besides, the existence of solid solubility
and limitation of strain engineering also influence the
performance of GeSn based devices. Above all, the
GeSn devices wrapped in Si3N4 a
1.0 photodetector with GeSn is potential for the feasibility of
Solid: τSRH=100 ns practical applications. It is demonstrated that there are
0.8 already some achievements in photodetection45-46. Due to
Open: τSRH=50 ns
the tremendous research attention to this material, the
0.6
growth of GeSn film is correspondingly explored to im-
0.4 Unstrained
prove the stability and quality of GeSn film for the devel-
devices
opment of GeSn-based photonic applications47-49. Owing
0.2 to the fast growing rate of the research on this material,
ndoping=11018 cm-3

ninjected=510 18
cm-3 the author is confident that more breakthroughs in prac-
0.0 tical applications will be achieved.
Internal quantum efficiency ηIOE (%)

GeSn devices wrapped in Si3N4 b

1.0

0.8
ndoping=11018 cm-3 Conclusion
ninjected=51018 cm-3
In summary, we discuss the recent achievements in the
0.6 applications of GeSn based devices wrapped by the Si3N4
liner stressor. Their strain distribution is analyzed in de-
0.4 ninjected=11018 cm-3
tail by numerical simulation tools, which is introduced by
Solid: τSRH=100 ns the Si3N4 liner stressor. The calculations show that the
0.2
Open: τSRH=50 ns performance can be improved by optimizing the geomet-
0.0
ric parameters. Importantly, the operating wavelength can
c be extended to the whole mid-infrared (2~5 μm) region,
1.0 GeSn devices wrapped in Si3N4
ninjected=51018 cm-3 which paves the way for the monolithic and CMOS-
0.8 compatible mid-infrared integrated optics applications
like image sensors and optical receivers.
0.6 Solid: τSRH=100 ns
Open: τSRH=50 ns
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Competing interests
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The authors declare no competing financial interests.
47. Grant P C, Dou W, Alharthi B, Grant J M, Mosleh A et al. Com-

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