Microstructures of Ge-dots/Si multilayered structures fabricated by Ni-induced lateral crystallization

The microstructures of the Ge-dots/Si multilayered structure films fabricated by metal-induced lateral crystallization (MILC) have been investigated. The micro-Raman spectroscopy, optical microscopy and electron microscopy observations reveal that the crystallized Si film has large leaf-like grains elongated along the lateral crystallization direction, which shows (110) preference. Furthermore, this preference is found to deliver to different Si layers of the multilayered structures to have an identical crystalline orientation. The strain shift of Ge dots as deduced from Raman spectroscopy reveals a formation of a high-quality interface between the crystallized Si and Ge-dot