Open AccessStructural relaxation probed by resistance drift in amorphous germanium
Author(s) -
Ningning Dong,
Jiangen Xu,
Jinjiang Cui,
Xiaodong Wang
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
materials research express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.383
H-Index - 35
ISSN - 2053-1591
DOI - 10.1088/2053-1591/ab80a9
Subject(s) - germanium , amorphous solid , materials science , annealing (glass) , relaxation (psychology) , amorphous metal , sputter deposition , band gap , sputtering , optoelectronics , condensed matter physics , analytical chemistry (journal) , thin film , crystallography , nanotechnology , chemistry , metallurgy , silicon , physics , psychology , social psychology , chromatography
Amorphous germanium films with different thicknesses are deposited by magnetron sputtering (MS) method. Optical band gap and surface resistance are characterized. Our analysis reveals that there are three kinds of structural relaxation (SR) that may occur in amorphous germanium (a-Ge), and they are spontaneous SR (SSR), annealing-induced SR (AISR), and medium range order (MRO)-to-continuous random network (CRN) Sr Samples all demonstrate a band gap widening after these kinds of Sr The properties and mechanisms of SSR, AISR, and MRO-to-CRN SR are elucidated, respectively, which sheds some light on the controversies about SR in a-Ge films. In addition, some experimental results about SSR and AISR are also provided.