Tensile strained GeSn on Si by solid phase epitaxy

We demonstrate single crystalline GeSn with tensile strain on silicon substrates. Amorphous GeSn layers are obtained by limiting the adatom surface mobility during deposition. Subsequent annealing transforms the amorphous layer into single crystalline GeSn by solid phase epitaxy. Excellent structural quality is demonstrated for layers with up to 6.1% of Sn. The GeSn layers show tensile strain (up to +0.34%), which lowers the difference between direct and indirect band transition and makes this method promising for obtaining direct band gap group IV layers. GeSn with 4.5% Sn shows increased optical absorption compared to Ge and an optical band gap of 0.52 eV.