GeSi/Si bistable diode exhibiting a large on/off conductance ratio

X. Zheng, T. K. Carns, and K. L. Wang

Electrical Engineering Department, Device Research Laboratory, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90024-1594

Received 19 July 1994; accepted for publication 6 March 1995 A novel bistable phenomenon having both a high conductance on state and a high impedance off state has been observed in a forward biased delta-doped GeSi/Si tunnel diode grown by molecular beam epitaxy. The bistable characteristics are attributed to the different mobile carrier densities in the delta-doped layers, which leads to the switching of the band structure from a tunnel junctionlike alignment to a p - i - n junctionlike alignment or vice-versa. An on/off conductance ratio larger than 106 has been demonstrated for a modied diode structure. The device processing is technologically compatible to the current Si metal-oxide-semiconductor technology, making the device useful for a high speed, high density static random access memory cell. 1995 American Institute of Physics.

The idea of using a bistable or dual state device as the storage element of a simplied very large scale integrated circuits VLSI static random access memory SRAM cell has attracted interests of many authors.19 Using these devices, there is a potential benet of increasing the memory capacity by several times. However, in order to be practical, the storage device should be silicon based and have a sharp contrast of conductance between its on and off states. To date, most of the reported devices for this purpose are IIIV material based and have a large off state current.29 In this letter, we report a new -doped GeSi/Si tunnel diode which exhibits both a high conductance on state and a high impedance off state at forward bias. The striking performance of the bistable device makes it a realistic candidate for the storage element of a simplied VLSI SRAM cell. A model is given to explain the new bistable phenomenon, which may also be exploited for development of other novel devices. Shown in Fig. 1 is the test diode. The structure was grown on a 0.01 cm p -type Si100 substrate with a silicon molecular beam epitaxy MBE system Perkin-Elmer 430. An undoped 200 nm thick silicon buffer layer was rst grown, followed by a 2 nm thick Ge0.6Si0.4 strained well with a planar boron doping in the middle of the layer. A 23 nm thick undoped silicon spacer was grown above the Ge0.6Si0.4 layer, followed by a Sb planar-doped layer. As determined by high resolution secondary ion mass spectroscopy SIMS measurements, the two-dimensional 2D density of both the B and Sb -doped layers was about 2 1013 cm2, exceeding the calculated 2D density of 1.2 1013 cm2 for forming the tunnel junction. Finally, a 400 nm thick Sb-doped ( n -type 1 1019 cm3 silicon cap layer was grown. Three n -doped layers were inserted near the top of the cap for better ohmic contact.10 The growth temperatures for the silicon buffer and other layers were 650 and 530 C, respectively. Delta doping was obtained using a low temperature growth-interruption technique.11,12 Mesa etching to the p -type substrate was accomplished using a standard wet-etching process. Aluminum contacts to the p -type substrate and n -type cap layer were made from both sides of the wafer and were conrmed to be ohmic. Shown in Figs. 2a and 2b are the forward I V curves of the bistable diode at 300 and 77 K, respectively. The reAppl. Phys. Lett. 66 (18), 1 May 1995

verse characteristics of the diode has a soft breakdown at about 2 V and is not shown. Both the I V curves exhibit an obvious loop that is composed of two reversible branches, indicated as branch I and II in the gures, with two counterclockwise transitions between the two branches. The conductance of branch II is clearly larger than that of branch I, and this fact is important for its application as to be discussed later. As the forward bias increases from 0 V up, the diode is in state I until the bias reaches 1.14 V at 300 K or 1.8 V at 77 K. As shown in the gures, a plateau structure is clearly evident at 0.92 V 300 K or 1.32 V 77 K. It is identied as a smeared n -shaped negative differential resistance NDR, resulted from the interband tunneling between the p -type and n -type -doped layers, similar to an Esaki tunnel diode.13 The smearing of the NDR can be attributed to two reasons: a the series resistance of the undoped buffer tends to reduce the NDR effect and turn the NDR into a plateau structure, b the presence of the series resistance of the undoped buffer along with the offset of the GeSi/Si heterojunction shifts the NDR bias to the higher value, thus resulting in a larger thermal component of the total plateau current. To further support this reasoning, another sample identical to the test device except that the buffer layer was boron doped to 1018 cm3 was prepared. In this case, the Fermi levels of the GeSi well and the p -type substrate always lined up and the series resistance was reduced; therefore no bistability but a clear NDR was observed, which is seen as an indication of the tunnel junction. The I V behavior of the bistable diode may be further understood by studying the energy band diagrams. The

FIG. 1. Cross section of the -doped GeSi/Si bistable diode. 1995 American Institute of Physics 2403

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FIG. 3. Band diagrams of the bistable diode in a state I, the tunnel junctionlike state, and b state II, the p - i - n junctionlike state. The dashed lines in a depicts the band alignment at zero bias. The band diagrams indicated by solid line in both a and b are under similar applied bias. The thick arrows indicate the direction of current ows. A cross section of the diode is shown in the bottom of the gure to denote the layers corresponding to detailed band structure. FIG. 2. Forward I V characteristics of the bistable diode at a 300 K and b 77 K. The two branches of each I V curve are labeled with I and II, respectively. The origin of each curves is located where branch I begins. The transitions between branches I and II are both counterclockwise.

dashed and solid band diagrams in Fig. 3a are for zero bias and a forward bias of the bistable diode at state I, respectively. A tunnel junction is formed due to the abrupt band bending between the two -doped layers caused by the depletion charges in both the -doped layers. The heavy-hole quantum well formed in the Ge0.6Si0.4 layer has a depth of 630 meV as calculated using the band parameters from Ma et al.14 Nearly all of the residual holes in the Ge0.6Si0.4 well occupy in the heavy-hole ground state where the Fermi level of the GeSi layer E FW lies. In state I, E FW and E FN the Fermi level of the n region are almost equal, therefore the electron barrier at the GeSi well region has a constant height of 0.50.6 eV for different biases. This barrier blocks the electrons in the n -type region from crossing over, and thus leads to a negligible electron diffusion-drift current. The hole barrier in the region of the n -type -doped layer also has a constant height. However, due to the voltage drop across the undoped buffer layer, the energies of holes owing through the buffer layer are increased with bias. Because the hole with higher energy has a larger probability to crossover the hole barrier by thermal activation, the thermal component of the hole current will increase with bias. For a conventional tunnel diode, the tunneling current usually peaks at below 0.1 V, in which the diffusion current is negligible even at room temperature.15 In contrast, the hole diffusion-drift current for the bistable diode at room temperature is an impor2404 Appl. Phys. Lett., Vol. 66, No. 18, 1 May 1995

tant component of the total current near the plateau region because the large bias leads to a pronounced hole diffusiondrift current. In addition to the thermal component, there is a tunneling current from the GeSi well to the n -type -doped layer. Similar to the Esaki tunnel diode,15 the steady current at state I can be expressed as: I I tun I exc I pd, 1

where I tun , I exc , and I pd are the tunneling current, excess current, and hole diffusion-drift current, respectively. The excess current is mainly due to carrier tunneling by way of energy states within the band gap. The hole diffusion-drift current is a monotonic function of the bias and has a strong temperature dependence. The electron diffusion-drift current is neglected as it is small. Due to the temperature dependence of this diffusion-drift component, the plateau current will decrease markedly at 77 K, as seen in Fig. 2b, compared to Fig. 2a. The condition for the transition from state I to state II is that the hole current injected into the GeSi well exceeds the sink current ( I tun I exc of the well when the total current is increased to beyond a critical value. As the transition occurs, holes are accumulated in the GeSi well and correspondingly free electrons accumulated in the n -type -doped layer. They neutralize the depleted charges of the two -doped layers and eliminate the inner eld between them. As a result, the band structure is switched to a p - i - n junctionlike alignment as shown in Fig. 3b. It is noted that the I V relation at state II is almost linear instead of an exponential one as would be in a normal forward bias diode. This is an indication that there is no barrier in the band alignment at state II as shown in Fig.
Zheng, Carns, and Wang

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much lower current 0.1 A at 2 V for a 75 m diameter diode and a higher transition voltage 3.5 V for state I. The transition voltage swing is now increased to 2.7 V, giving rise to a much higher noise margin. For this device, the resistances of states I and II are approximately 20 M and 6 , respectively, offering an on/off ratio of 2 106 . The reverse breakdown voltage is also improved to 16 V. In addition, the maintaining current of the p - i - n state is signicantly reduced, as shown in Fig. 4b, compared with Fig. 2a. This maintaining current may be further reduced by increasing the space between two -doped layers as well as having improved surface passivation. In summary, we have demonstrated a novel bistable GeSi/Si diode with a -doped p - i - p - n - n structure grown by MBE. The clear bistability of the I V characteristics was explained by a band switching effect caused by the shift of the Fermi level in the p -type -doped layer. A diode with an improved off state characteristics was obtained by incorporating a Ge0.6Si0.4 /Si superlattice in the structure. With the use of the bistable diode, the number of the elements and the occupied chip area for a SRAM cell can be reduced. The device has potential application in high speed, high density SRAM. The authors are grateful to Dr. Robert Wilson of Hughes Research Laboratories for the high resolution SIMS measurements. This work was supported in part by the Air Force Ofce of Scientic Research under the direction of Dr. Gerald Witt and by SRC under Dr. W. Holton and Dr. W. Lynch.
FIG. 4. a I V characteristics of a modied structure with an additional Ge0.6Si0.4 /Si superlattice grown just prior to the growth of the Ge0.6Si0.4 well. b Same characteristics under a ner scale for illustrating the minimum current necessary to maintain state II. The origin of each curve is located where branch I begins.

3b. In the steady state, there is a recombination of the holes in the well with the electrons in the n -type -doped layer. This recombination current is the major component of the maintaining current of state II, below which the diode switches back to state I. Being temperature dependent, the recombination current state II decreases at low temperature as evident in Fig. 2b compared with Fig. 2a. For practical VLSI SRAM applications, it is essential that the bistable diode exhibits a completely off state and has a larger output voltage swing than that shown in Fig. 2. From the band structure depicted in Fig. 3a, it is clear that the off state current may be reduced by introducing hole barriers on the left-hand side of the GeSi well. A Ge0.6Si0.4 /Si superlattice eight periods of 20 Ge0.6Si0.4 and 15 Si between the Si buffer layer and the Ge0.6Si0.4 well was used in an improved structure to form the desired hole barriers. The results of the improvement are shown in Fig. 4, illustrating a

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Appl. Phys. Lett., Vol. 66, No. 18, 1 May 1995

Zheng, Carns, and Wang

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