TY - GEN A1 - Steuer, O. A1 - Liedke, Maciej O. A1 - Butterling, M. A1 - Schwarz, D. A1 - Schulze, J. A1 - Li, Z. A1 - Wagner, A. A1 - Fischer, Inga Anita A1 - Hübner, R. A1 - Zhou, S. T1 - Evolution of point defects in pulsed-laser-melted Ge1-xSnx probed by positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy T2 - Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter N2 - Direct-band-gap Germanium-Tin alloys (Ge1-xSnx) with high carrier mobilities are promising materials for nano- and optoelectronics. The concentration of open volume defects in the alloy, such as Sn and Ge vacancies, influences the final device performance. In this article, we present an evaluation of the point defects in molecular-beam-epitaxy grown Ge1-xSnx films treated by post-growth nanosecond-range pulsed laser melting (PLM). Doppler broadening – variable energy positron annihilation spectroscopy and variable energy positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy are used to investigate the defect nanostructure in the Ge1-xSnx films exposed to increasing laser energy density. The experimental results, supported with ATomic SUPerposition calculations, evidence that after PLM, the average size of the open volume defects increases, which represents a raise in concentration of vacancy agglomerations, but the overall defect density is reduced as a function of the PLM fluence. At the same time, the positron annihilation spectroscopy analysis provides information about dislocations and Ge vacancies decorated by Sn atoms. Moreover, it is shown that the PLM reduces the strain in the layer, while dislocations are responsible for trapping of Sn and formation of small Sn-rich-clusters. KW - GeSn KW - laser annealing KW - positron annihilation KW - PLM KW - point defects Y1 - 2023 UR - https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-648X/ad0a10/meta U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-648X/ad0a10 SN - 0953-8984 VL - 36 IS - 8 SP - 1 EP - 11 ER -