Strain relaxation in germanium-on-insulator fabricated by a modified germanium condensation

Germanium-on-insulator (GeOI) is a promising platform for silicon-based photonics as well as microelectronics. In this work a modified Ge-condensation technique in which Ge ions were implanted into a top silicon layer was proposed. Through a cyclic dry oxidation and annealing steps, ∼20 nm thick, single crystalline Ge layer could be obtained. X-ray diffraction and Raman scattering analyses also confirmed that the layer was fully-relaxed, which is desirable for the integration of Ge, GaAs, and strained silicon on the GeOI.