Electron-beam-induced current was employed to investigate misfit dislocations at the interface of strained Si/Si0.8Ge0.2, which were located within the depletion region of Schottky contact. The misfit dislocations were intentionally introduced by growing the strained-Si layer to a thickness larger than the critical thickness. Two orthogonal sets of weak dark lines and some weak dark dots were observed with low electron-beam energy at a low temperature. These dark lines and dark dots corresponded to the misfit dislocations and threading dislocations, respectively. The misfit dislocations and misfit dislocations were found to be nearly electrically inactive at room temperature and increased their activities at lower temperature, indicating that they were accompanied by shallow levels and free from metallic contamination. Comparisons with the chemical etched pattern revealed that each of the electron-beam-induced current dark lines corresponded to a bundle of misfit dislocations.

Detection of Misfit Dislocations at Interface of Strained Si/Si0.8Ge0.2 by Electron-Beam-Induced Current Technique. X.L.Yuan, T.Sekiguchi, S.G.Ri, S.Ito: Applied Physics Letters, 2004, 84[17], 3316-8