Structural Mapping of Functional Ge Layers Grown on Graded SiGe Buffers for sub-10 nm CMOS Applications Using Advanced X‑ray Nanodiffraction

We report a detailed advanced materials characterization study on 40 nm thick strained germanium (Ge) layers integrated on 300 mm Si(001) wafers via strain-relaxed silicon–germanium (SiGe) buffer layers. Fast-scanning X-ray microscopy is used to directly image structural inhomogeneities, lattice tilt, thickness, and strain of a functional Ge layer down to the sub-micrometer scale with a real space step size of 750 μm. The structural study shows that the metastable Ge layer, pseudomorphically grown on Si0.3Ge0.7, exhibits an average compressive biaxial strain of −1.27%. By applying a scan area of 100 × 100 μm2, we observe microfluctuations of strain, lattice tilt, and thickness of ca. ±0.03%, ±0.05°, and ±0.8 nm, respectively. This study confirms the high materials homogeneity of the compressively strained Ge layer realized by the step-graded SiGe buffer approach on 300 mm Si wafers. This presents thus a promising materials science approach for advanced sub-10 nm complementary metal oxide–semiconductor applications based on strain-engineered Ge transistors to outperform current Si channel technologies.