Effect of Au on the crystallization of germanium thin films by electron-beam evaporation

Metal induced crystallization is a widely used method to form crystalline/polycrystalline structures at low temperatures. In this work, Au was applied to enhance the crystallization of amorphous Ge films. Ge films with thicknesses of similar to 1.5 mu m were fabricated by electron beam evaporation on c-Si substrate with and without very thin Au layer. Crystallization properties of Ge films were analyzed for different growth and post annealing temperatures varied between 270 degrees C and 730 degrees C. The structures of polycrystalline Ge films were investigated by employing X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectra and scanning electron microscopy (SEM)