Excellent passivation of germanium surfaces by POx/Al2O3 stacks

Passivation of germanium surfaces is vital for the application of germanium in next-generation electronic and photonic devices. In this work, it is demonstrated that stacks of phosphorous oxide and aluminum oxide (POx/Al2O3) provide excellent and stable passivation of germanium surfaces, with state-of-the-art surface recombination velocities down to 8.9 cm/s. The POx/Al2O3 stack also exhibits positive fixed charge on germanium, which makes it especially suited for passivation of highly doped n-type germanium surfaces. The chemical passivation mechanism is found to be related to the passivation of defects by hydrogen, which is mobilized by the formation of AlPO4 upon annealing. Furthermore, the GeOx interlayer is removed due to a kind of “self-cleaning” process during the deposition of POx/Al2O3 stacks on germanium, which may in part explain the excellent passivation quality. This self-cleaning of the interface may also allow simplified device fabrication workflows, as pretreatments may be omitted.