Contact resistivity and Fermi-level pinning in n-type Ge contacts with epitaxial Si-passivation

We report on the study of the electrical and material properties of n-Ge contacts with a thin Si-passivation layer. n-Ge contacts typically show Fermi-level pinning and low dopant activation which results in too large specific contact resistivities of >10−4 Ω cm2 and which impedes applications such as high performance Ge complementary metal-oxide semiconductor technology. In this work a thin in situ doped (1×1020 cm−3 of phosphorus) epitaxial Si-passivation layer is grown selectively on n-Ge, followed by a Ti/TiN stack deposition. The insertion of this thin Si-passivation layer reduces the pinning and activation limitation, achieving specific contact resistivity values of ∼1×10−6 Ω cm2. Physical modeling of the specific contact resistivities was performed, providing the insight validating the underlying explanation of the improvement. Key factors for the contact resistivity lowering are the good alignment of the Si and Ge conduction bands and the higher doping concentration achieved in Si.