Features of electronic transport in relaxed Si/Si1−X Ge X heterostructures with high doping level.

Abstract: The low-temperature electrical and magnetotransport characteristics of partially relaxed Si/Si1−x Ge x heterostructures with two-dimensional electron channel (n e≥1012 cm−2) in an elastically strained silicon layer of nanometer thickness have been studied. The detailed calculation of the potential and of the electrons distribution in layers of the structure was carried out to understand the observed phenomena. The dependence of the tunneling transparency of the barrier separating the 2D and 3D transport channels in the structure, was studied as a function of the doping level, the degree of blurring boundaries, layer thickness, degree of relaxation of elastic stresses in the layers of the structure. Tunnel characteristics of the barrier between the layers were manifested by the appearance of a tunneling component in the current–voltage characteristics of real structures. Instabilities, manifested during the magnetotransport measurements using both weak and strong magnetic fields are explained by the transitions of charge carriers from the two-dimensional into three-dimensional state, due to interlayer tunneling transitions of electrons. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]