Composition Dependent Electrical Transport in Si Ge Nanosheets with Monolithic Single-Elementary Al Contacts.

Si Ge is a key material in modern complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor and bipolar devices. However, despite considerable efforts in metal-silicide and -germanide compound material systems, reliability concerns have so far hindered the implementation of metal-Si Ge junctions that are vital for diverse emerging "More than Moore" and quantum computing paradigms. In this respect, the systematic structural and electronic properties of Al-Si Ge heterostructures, obtained from a thermally induced exchange between ultra-thin Si Ge nanosheets and Al layers are reported.

Monolithic and Single-Crystalline Aluminum-Silicon Heterostructures.

Overcoming the difficulty in the precise definition of the metal phase of metal-Si heterostructures is among the key prerequisites to enable reproducible next-generation nanoelectronic, optoelectronic, and quantum devices. Here, we report on the formation of monolithic Al-Si heterostructures obtained from both bottom-up and top-down fabricated Si nanostructures and Al contacts. This is enabled by a thermally induced Al-Si exchange reaction, which forms abrupt and void-free metal-semiconductor interfaces in contrast to their bulk counterparts.

Plasmon-assisted polarization-sensitive photodetection with tunable polarity for integrated silicon photonic communication systems.

To establish high-bandwidth chip-to-chip interconnects in optoelectronic integrated circuits, requires high-performance photon emitters and signal receiving components. Regarding the photodetector, fast device concepts like Schottky junction devices, large carrier mobility materials and shrinking the channel length will enable higher operation speed. However, integrating photodetectors in highly scaled ICs technologies is challenging due to the efficiency-speed trade-off.

Monolithic Metal-Semiconductor-Metal Heterostructures Enabling Next-Generation Germanium Nanodevices.

Low-dimensional Ge is perceived as a promising building block for emerging optoelectronic devices. Here, we present a wafer-scale platform technology enabling monolithic Al-Ge-Al nanostructures fabricated by a thermally induced Al-Ge exchange reaction. Transmission electron microscopy confirmed the purity and crystallinity of the formed Al segments with an abrupt interface to the remaining Ge segment.