TY - JOUR A1 - Österle, Werner A1 - Ressel, P. T1 - XTEM investigation of Ge/Pd shallow contact to p-IN0.53Ga0.47As JF - Materials science & engineering B N2 - Cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy, in combination with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and focused beam microdiffraction, was applied to study the solid-state reactions taking place during contact formation of the system Ge(115 nm)/Pd(50 nm)—In0.53Ga0.47As. In order to get information about the sequence of the different processes, rapid thermal, annealing experiments in the range 225–400 °C were performed. The following features were observed: at 225 °C Pd reacted with the substrate forming the quaternary phase PdxIn0.53Ga0.47As (x ˜ 4), and with the Ge-layer forming mainly PdGe and Pd2Ge. Between PdxIn0.53Ga0.47As and In0.53Ga0.47As, a 5 nm thick amorphous Pd-In-Ga-As layer remained, indicating that the first reaction step was solid-state amorphization. After annealing at 350 °C, PdxIn0.53Ga0.47As disappeared and regrowth of In0.53Ga0.47As occured. Finally, at 400 °C, residual Ge from the amorphous top layer diffused to the interface and grew epitaxially on the regrown In0.53Ga0.47As, thus separating the III–V compound semiconductor from the Pd-Ge reaction products. The interface remained flat, while only about 10 nm of the active In0.53Ga0.47As layer had been modified during the annealing processes. PY - 1996 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/0921-5107(96)01580-2 SN - 0921-5107 SN - 1873-4944 VL - 40 IS - 1 SP - 42 EP - 49 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam AN - OPUS4-2513 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -