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].