Morphology and structure evolution of multilayered Ge/Si quantum dots grown by magnetron sputtering

We prepared multilayered Si-based Ge quantum dots (Ge/Si QDs) by using magnetron sputtering technique and reported the corresponding morphology evolution. The increased temperature can improve the Si-isolated-layer crystallinity and Ge atom mobility to increase the density, size and spatial distribution uniformity of top-layer QDs. The morphology and vertical correlation between layers of QDs at different temperatures exhibited different phenomena or laws, and had been explained in this work, which made it possible to control the quality of multilayer QDs more effectively in the high-rate growth, and laid a foundation for the industrial production of active layers of optoelectronic devices.