Tensile-strained Ge/SiGe quantum-well photodetectors on silicon substrates with extended infrared response.

We report on tensile-strained Ge/SiGe quantum-well (QW) metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) photodetectors on Si substrates. A tensile strain of 0.21% is introduced into the Ge wells by growing the QW stack on in-situ annealed Ge-on-Si virtual substrates (VS). The optical characterization of Ge/SiGe QW MSM photodetectors indicates that the optical response increases to a wavelength of 1.5 μm or higher owing to the strain-induced direct bandgap shrinkage. Analysis of the band structure by using a k · p model suggests that by optimizing the tensile strain and Ge well width, tensile-strained Ge/SiGe QW photodetectors can be designed to cover the telecommunication C-band and beyond for optical telecommunications and on-chip interconnection.