Carbon-Containing Layers on Silicon: Growth, Properties & Applications (Materials Science Foundations, V. 7)

The addition of supersaturated carbon to silicon or silicon-germanium thin films leads to a new class of semiconducting materials. This new material can alleviate some of the constraints on strained Sil-xGex and may help to open up new field of device applications for heteroepitazial Si-based systems. Basic growth problems, as well as the mechanical and electrical properties of Sil-yCy and Sil-x-yGexCy layers grown pseudomorphically onto Si(001), have been reviewed. The incorporation of carbon can be used (i) to enhance SiGe layer properties (ii) to obtain layers with new properties, or (iii) to control dopant diffusion in microelectronic devices. The phenomenon of suppressed boron diffusion in carbon-rich epitixial layers canbe used to increase the performance of SiGe heterojunciton bipolar transistors (HBTs). When compared with SiGe technologies, the addition of carbon offers a significantly greater flexibility in process design and a greater latitude in processing margins.