ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the device potential of silicon molecular beam epitaxy (Si-MBE). It deals with silicon-only epitaxial structures and considers possible applications of the abrupt doping profiles available by MBE. The chapter describes the thermionic emission transistor operation to bring out the characteristic limitations of all analog transistors. It is concerned with the hot-electron injection devices, i.e., such devices in which hot carriers are physically transferred between adjacent semiconductor layers. In the low-temperature MBE growth of the strained layer, the formation of dislocations is impeded by a kinetic barrier, so that the actual dislocation-free stained-layer thickness can be an order of magnitude larger than that thermodynamically allowed under equilibrium conditions. The chapter also deals with the “traditional” domain of MBE — devices whose operation requires super-fine resolution of doping and composition profiles and relies on the electrical and optical properties of the resulting homo-junctions or heterojunctions.
