Virginia Tech. Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Advanced Devices & Sustainable Energy Laboratory (ADSEL)Virginia Tech. Center for Energy Harvesting Materials and Systems (CEHMS)Jain, NikhilZhu, YizhengMaurya, DeepamVarghese, RonniePriya, ShashankHudait, Mantu K.2015-05-042015-05-042014-01-14Jain, N., Zhu, Y., Maurya, D., Varghese, R., Priya, S., Hudait, M. K. (2014). Interfacial band alignment and structural properties of nanoscale TiO2 thin films for integration with epitaxial crystallographic oriented germanium. Journal of Applied Physics, 115(2). doi: 10.1063/1.48611370021-8979http://hdl.handle.net/10919/51972We have investigated the structural and band alignment properties of nanoscale titanium dioxide (TiO2) thin films deposited on epitaxial crystallographic oriented Ge layers grown on (100), (110), and (111) A GaAs substrates by molecular beam epitaxy. The TiO2 thin films deposited at low temperature by physical vapor deposition were found to be amorphous in nature, and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy confirmed a sharp heterointerface between the TiO2 thin film and the epitaxially grown Ge with no traceable interfacial layer. A comprehensive assessment on the effect of substrate orientation on the band alignment at the TiO2/Ge heterointerface is presented by utilizing x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and spectroscopic ellipsometry. A band-gap of 3.33 +/- 0.02 eV was determined for the amorphous TiO2 thin film from the Tauc plot. Irrespective of the crystallographic orientation of the epitaxial Ge layer, a sufficient valence band-offset of greater than 2 eV was obtained at the TiO2/Ge heterointerface while the corresponding conduction band-offsets for the aforementioned TiO2/Ge system were found to be smaller than 1 eV. A comparative assessment on the effect of Ge substrate orientation revealed a valence band-offset relation of Delta E-V(100)> Delta E-V(111)> Delta E-V(110) and a conduction band-offset relation of Delta E-C(110) > Delta E-C(111)> Delta E-C(100). These band-offset parameters are of critical importance and will provide key insight for the design and performance analysis of TiO2 for potential high-k dielectric integration and for future metal-insulator-semiconductor contact applications with next generation of Ge based metal-oxide field-effect transistors. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.9 pagesapplication/pdfenIn CopyrightGermaniumElemental semiconductorsEpitaxyThin film depositionX-ray photoelectron spectroscopyArticle - Refereedhttp://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/jap/115/2/10.1063/1.4861137https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4861137