Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology B, Vol.16, No.3, 1737-1739, 1998
Effect of hydrogenation on misfit dislocations in SiGe/Si structures for photovoltaic applications
Thick Si0.9Ge0.1 relaxed layers grown by chemical vapor deposition on Si(100) oriented substrates are investigated by photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. Resolved excitor;ic near-band-gap luminescence is observed in as-grown and hydrogen treated samples. Phonon assisted transitions are also well identified. The effect of hydrogenation is to enhance the luminescence related to the near-band gap. This enhancement is correlated with a quenching in the dislocation related PL especially for the D3-D4 bands and the T band. This indicates that hydrogenation passivates radiative centers inside dislocation cores which are, responsible, beside nonradiative channels, for the quenching of SiGe band-gap edge luminescence.