Attractive interaction of Indium with point defects and silicon in GeSi

TL;DR

This study investigates how indium interacts with point defects and silicon in GeSi alloys, revealing that silicon influences defect binding energies and promotes attractive interactions with indium, affecting defect stability.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the interaction mechanisms between indium, vacancies, interstitials, and silicon in GeSi, highlighting strain effects on defect complexes.

Findings

In-vacancy and In-interstitial complexes are observed in GeSi similar to pure Ge.

Silicon alters the dissociation temperatures of In-defect complexes.

Attractive interaction between In and Si atoms is confirmed.

Abstract

In electron irradiated Ge$_{0.98}$Si$_{0.02}$, In-vacancy and In-interstitial complexes were observed in analogy with defects in pure Ge. Isochronal annealing measurements reveal that the temperature of dissociation of In-defect complexes deviate from pure Ge subjected to identical e-irradiation, which is explained on the basis of strain induced by undersized silicon atoms affecting the binding energy of In-V and In-I complexes. Besides the pairing with intrinsic defects the interaction of In with Si atoms is observed resulting in several different configurations. Complementary experiments performed in Ge$_{0.98}$Si$_{0.02}$ and Ge$_{0.94}$Si$_{0.06}$ elucidate the attractive interaction between In and Si.