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 s ubstrate and evaluation of strain in the Si layer on this SGOI substrate ar e presented. A 9-nm-thick SGOI layer with x =0.56 was formed by dry oxidati on after epitaxial growth Of Si0.92Ge0.08 on a silicon-on-insulator substra te. During the oxidation, Ge atoms were rejected from the surface oxide lay er and condensed in the remaining SGOI layer, which was partially relaxed w ithout introducing a significant amount of dislocations. It is found from t he analysis of the Raman spectra that the strained Si layer grown on the SG OI layer involves a tensile strain of 1%. This strained Si on the SGOI stru cture is applicable to sub-100-nm metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect tr ansistors. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.