Silicon-based group IV heterostructures for optoelectronic applications

This article presents an overview of trends and progress in group IV heterostructures for optoelectronics. The outlook is good in electronics because the commercialization of SiGe/Si heterotransitors is proceeding nicely. However, the pace of progress is slower in SiGe/Si photonics. This article covers five innovative topics in an effort to enhance the development of heterostructure photonics: (1) band-gap studies of SiGeC, an alloy that can be lattice matched to Si, (2) direct-band-gap, strained heterostructures of GeSn upon GeSi/Si, (3) silicon-based quantum-well intersubband lasers (ISBLs) including SiGe/Si quantum-cascade, Raman, and inversionless ISBLs, (4) 1.5 mu m ISBLs based on Si quantum wells with high barriers, such as heterosystems of Si/ZnS, and Si with SiO2/Si strained superlattice barriers, and (5) low-cost substrates of 3C SiC upon SiO2/Si, a platform for SiC heterodevices and for InGaN/AlGaN heterodevices.