Ge growth on porous silicon: The effect of buffer porosity on the epilayer crystalline quality

We report on the epitaxial growth of Ge virtual substrates directly on Si (001) and on different porosity porous silicon (pSi) buffers. Obtained results indicate that Ge grown on low porosity (22%) pSi buffer has a better crystalline quality compared to Ge grown on bulk Si and on higher porosity buffers. This result is attributed to the compliant nature of pSi and to its reduced Young's modulus, which leads to plastic tensile deformation of the 22% porosity buffer under the in-plane tensile stress introduced by Ge lattice. The same result is not observed for higher porosity buffers, this effect being attributed to the higher buffer fragility. A low porosity pSi layer can hence be used as buffer for the growth of Ge on Si virtual substrates with reduced dislocation content and for the growth of Ge based devices or the successive integration of III-V semiconductors on Si.