Si-Ge-C growth and devices

Silicon-germanium can now be regarded as a relatively well-established tech nology, and consequently much recent work has addressed the additional poss ibilities opened up by adding carbon to form the ternary alloy SiGeC. Carbo n in principle provides additional bandgap engineering possibilities and al so has an important impact on the stability of strained epitaxial layers. T his paper surveys recent work on the growth of Si-Ge-C epitaxial layers, wi th particular emphasis on the advantages and limitations of carbon incorpor ation. Examples of applications in which carbon leads to improved device pe rformance are discussed. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved .