Liquid Epitaxial Growth of Germanium

ABSTRACT

Liquid epitaxial growth of germanium is proposed as another technique of obtaining epitaxial layers of germanium. Experimental results obtained using the indium-germanium and bismuth-germanium systems have yielded growth layers containing 1O¹⁷ carriers per cc. whereas bismuth-antimony-germanium system of liquid epitaxial growth has yielded growth layers having electronic concentration of the order of 10¹⁹ per cc. Epitaxial layers of thicknesses up to 600 microns have been obtained in the experiments conducted.

Results obtained for the case of germanium have been encouraging and it is felt that the proposed technique can be applied to obtain epitaxial layers of silicon also. With the selection of suitable vehicles, growth temperatures where impurity diffusion is negligible can be attained. Thus liquid epitaxial growth technique can usefully replace the vapour epitaxial growth technique where diffusion effects have to be eliminated.