ABSTRACT
Germanium (Ge) played a role of primary importance since the
very beginning of the solid-state electronics age. The first transistor,
invented at Bell Laboratories in 1947 by William Shockley, John
Bardeen, and Walter Brattain, was made with a Ge crystal [1].
On the other hand, the subsequent fast and huge development of
microelectronics and integrated circuits was based on silicon (Si).
The reasons why Si dominates the microelectronics industry are
mostly related to its abundance, low cost and excellent properties
of its oxide, the SiO2. Ge has been then mostly applied in the field
of infrared photodetectors, due to the lower band gap with respect
to Si. In recent years, the use of Ge in microelectronics strongly
increased with the development of new devices with high carrier
mobility and low commutation time [2].