Feasibility of Formation of Ge1-x-y Six Sny Layers With High Sn Concentration via Ion Implantation

By increasing the Sn concentration in Ge1-ySny and Ge1-x-ySixSny systems, these materials can be tuned from indirect to direct bandgap along with increasing electronic and photonic properties. Efforts have been made to synthesize Sn-Ge and Ge-Si-Sn structures and layers to produce lower energy direct bandgap materials. Due to low solid solubility of Sn in Ge and Si-Ge layers, high concentrations of Sn are not achieved by traditional synthesis processes such as chemical vapor deposition or molecular beam epitaxy. Implantation of Sn into Si-Ge systems, followed by rapid thermal annealing or pulse laser annealing, is shown to be an attractive technique for increasing Sn concentration, which can increase efficiencies in photovoltaic applications. In this paper, dynamic ion-solid simulation results are presented. Simulations were performed to determine optimal beam energy, implantation order, and fluence for a multi-step, ion-implantation based synthesis process.