The magnetotransport properties of epitaxial Ge/AlAs heterostructures with different growth conditions and substrate architectures have been studied under ±9 T magnetic field and at 390 mK temperature. Systematic mobility measurements of germanium (Ge) epilayers grown on GaAs substrates at growth temperatures from 350 to 450 °C allow us to extract a precise growth window for device-quality Ge, corroborated by structural and morphological properties. Our results on Si substrate using a composite metamorphic AlAs/GaAs buffer at 400 °C Ge growth temperature, show that the Ge/AlAs system can be tailored to have a single carrier transport while keeping the charge solely in the Ge layer. Single carrier transport confined to the Ge layer is demonstrated by the weak-localization quantum correction to the conductivity observed at low magnetic fields and 390 mK temperature. The weak localization effect points to a near-absence of spin-orbit interaction for carriers in the electronically active layer and is used here for the first time to pinpoint Ge as this active layer. Thus, the epitaxial Ge grown on Si using AlAs/GaAs buffer architecture is a promising candidate for next-generation energy-efficient fin field-effect transistor applications.
Keywords: epitaxy; germanium; heterostructure; molecular beam epitaxy; transport.