Ultrafast carrier thermalization and trapping in silicon-germanium alloy probed by extreme ultraviolet transient absorption spectroscopy

Abstract

Semiconductor alloys containing silicon and germanium are of growing importance for compact and highly efficient photonic devices due to their favorable properties for direct integration into silicon platforms and wide tunability of optical parameters. Here, we report the simultaneous direct and energy-resolved probing of ultrafast electron and hole dynamics in a silicon-germanium alloy with the stoichiometry Si_(0.2)5Ge_(0.75) by extreme ultraviolet transient absorption spectroscopy. Probing the photoinduced dynamics of charge carriers at the germanium M_(4,5)-edge (∼30 eV) allows the germanium atoms to be used as reporter atoms for carrier dynamics in the alloy. The photoexcitation of electrons across the direct and indirect band gap into conduction band (CB) valleys and their subsequent hot carrier relaxation are observed and compared to pure germanium, where the Ge direct (ΔE_(gap,Ge,direct) = 0.8eV) and Si_(0.25)Ge_(0.75) indirect gaps (ΔE_(gap,Si_(0.25)Ge_(0.75),indirect) = 0.95 eV) are comparable in energy. In the alloy, comparable carrier lifetimes are observed for the X, L, and Γ valleys in the conduction band. A midgap feature associated with electrons accumulating in trap states near the CB edge following intraband thermalization is observed in the Si_(0.25)Ge_(0.75) alloy. The successful implementation of the reporter atom concept for capturing the dynamics of the electronic bands by site-specific probing in solids opens a route to study carrier dynamics in more complex materials with femtosecond and sub-femtosecond temporal resolution.

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