The role of interdiffusion and spatial confinement in the formation of resonant raman spectra of Ge/Si(100) heterostructures with quantum-dot arrays

The phonon modes of self-assembled Ge/Si quantum dots grown by molecular-beam epitaxy in an apparatus integrated with a chamber of the scanning tunneling microscope into a single high-vacuum system are investigated using Raman spectroscopy. It is revealed that the Ge-Ge and Si-Ge vibrational modes are considerably enhanced upon excitation of excitons between the valence band Λ₃ and the conduction band Λ₁ (the E ₁ and E ₁ + Δ₁ transitions). This makes it possible to observe the Raman spectrum of very small amounts of germanium, such as one layer of quantum dots with a germanium layer thickness of ≈10 Å. The enhancement of these modes suggests a strong electron-phonon interaction of the vibrational modes with the E ₁ and E ₁ + Δ₁ excitons in the quantum dot. It is demonstrated that the frequency of the Ge-Ge mode decreases by 10 cm^?1 with a decrease in the thickness of the Ge layer from 10 to 6 Å due to the spatial-confinement effect. The optimum thickness of the Ge layer for which the size dispersion of quantum dots is minimum is determined.