Tensile strained semiconductor photon emission and detection devices and integrated photonics system
AssigneeAcorn Semi, LLC
InventorsPaul A. Clifton, Andreas Goebel, R. Stockton Gaines
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Abstract
Tensile strained germanium is provided that can be sufficiently strained to provide a nearly direct band gap material or a direct band gap material. Compressively stressed or tensile stressed stressor materials in contact with germanium regions induce uniaxial or biaxial tensile strain in the germanium regions. Stressor materials may include silicon nitride or silicon germanium. The resulting strained germanium structure can be used to emit or detect photons including, for example, generating photons within a resonant cavity to provide a laser.
Claims50
A strained semiconductor structure, comprising a plurality of discrete group IV semiconductor pillars formed in a layer of group IV semiconductor separated from an underlying silicon wafer by a buried insulating layer and surrounded in a plane parallel to a plane of the layer of group IV semiconductor by a layer of silicon nitride that is under tensile in-plane stress such that the pillars are isolated from one another laterally but are not isolated from an underlying portion of the layer of group IV semiconductor so that adjacent ones of the discrete group IV semiconductor pillars share a common underlying group IV semiconductor layer, each respective one of the pillars having a portion of the respective pillar with biaxial tensile strain induced parallel to the plane of the group IV semiconductor layer, and the discrete group IV semiconductor pillars being positioned at locations of a resonant cavity at intervals that allow light amplification in the cavity.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.