Overcoming the solid solubility limit of Te in Ge by ion implantation and pulsed laser melting recrystallization

Germanium hyperdoped with deep level donors, such as tellurium, would lead to dopant-mediated sub-band gap mid-infrared photoresponse at room temperature. We use a combination of non-equilibrium techniques to supersaturate Ge with Te via ion implantation followed by pulsed laser melting (PLM). Typically, liquid N
₂
(77K) temperatures are used to avoid implantation-induced Ge surface porosity. In this work, alternatively, we report on the use of slightly higher implantation temperatures (143 K) together with an amorphous Si (a-Si) capping layer. We demonstrate that the solid solubility limit of Te in Ge is overcome upon recovering the crystallinity of the material after laser processing.