Carbon (C) and Silicon Germanium (SiGe) work like a magic sauce. At least in small concentrations, they make everything taste better. It is remarkable enough that SiGe, a new material, and the heterobipolar transistor, a new device, appear on the brink of impacting the exploding wireless market. The addition of C to SiGe, albeit in small concentrations, looks to have breakthrough potential. Here, at last, is proof that materials science can put a rocket booster on the silicon-mind, the silicon transistor. Scientific excitement arises, as always, from the new possibilities a multicomponent materials system offers. Bandgaps can be changed, strains can be tuned, and properties can be tailored. This is catnip to the materials scientist. The wide array of techniques applied here to the SiGeC system bear testimony to the ingenious approaches now available for mastering the complexities of new materials

Despite the vast knowledge accumulated on silicon, germanium, and their alloys, these materials still demand research, eminently in view of the improvement of knowledge on silicon-germanium alloys and the potentialities of silicon as a substrate for high-efficiency solar cells and for compound semiconductors and the ongoing development of nanodevic

This research resulted the growth on the growth of this new semiconductor alloys, silicon-germanium carbon, by the technique of molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). The alloys have been characterized by several techniques including Rutherford backscattering spectronietry (RBS) for composition, and Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR) for optical absorption. The Si%%%%%Ge%C% alloys were successfully grown using all solid sources for the Si, Ge and C. Substrates were 75 mm diameter (100) - oriented Si wafers, and alloy layer thicknesses ranged from 10 nm to 3 %m.

The industrial relevance of SiGe has increased dramatically in the last few years with the manufacture of heterojunction bipolar circuits for the commercial wireless and datacomms markets by IBM and TEMIC, with over 20 companies planning manufacture in the near future. Major high technology companies see the development and use of SiGe as an important part of their strategy, so that there is a strong impetus to improve its characterization and exploitation. This liberally illustrated and fully indexed volume distils in a homogeneous, structured way the expertise of some 40 invited authors to comprehensively review the whole range of properties as well as SiGe: C, self-assembled nanostructures, quantum effects and device trends. The book contains 75% more text than Prof. Kasper's earlier book Properties of strained and relaxed SiGe (INSPEC, IEE, 1995), thoroughly updates its content and adds many new topics.

One of the first books to cover advanced silicon-based technologies, Advanced Silicon and Semiconducting Silicon Alloy-Based Materials and Devices presents important directions for research into silicon, its alloy-based semiconducting devices, and its development in commercial applications. The first section deals with single/mono crystalline silicon, focusing on the effects of heavy doping; the structure and electronic properties of defects and their impact on devices; the MBE of silicon, silicon alloys, and metals; CVD techniques for silicon and silicon germanium; the material properties of silicon germanium strained layers; silicon germanium heterojunction bipolar applications; FETs, IR detectors, and resonant tunneling devices in silicon, silicon germanium, and d-doped silicon; and the fascinating properties of crystalline silicon carbide and its applications. The second section explores polycrystalline silicon. It examines large grain polysilicon substrates for solar cells; the properties, analysis, and modeling of polysilicon TFTs; the technology of polysilicon TFTs in LCD displays; and the use of polycrystalline silicon and its alloys in VLSI applications. With contributors from leading academic and industrial research centers, this book provides wide coverage of fabrication techniques, material properties, and device applications.