Uncooled Silicon Germanium Oxide (SixGeyO1-x-y) Thin Films for Infrared Detection

This paper presents a detailed characterization of silicon germanium oxide (SixGeyO1-x-y) thin films with an Oxygen concentration below 10%. The results demonstrated that a high TCR and a low corresponding resistivity can be achieved using various compositions, for example, Si0.054Ge0.877O0.069 film has achieved a TCR and a resistivity of -3.516/K, and 629 Omega-cm, respectively. The lowest measured resistivity and the corresponding TCR were 119.6 Omega-cm and -2.202 %/K respectively, using Si0.136Ge0.838O0.026 for film deposited at room temperature, whereas the highest achieved TCR and the corresponding resistivity at room temperature were -5.017 %/K, and 39.1x10(3) Omega-cm, respectively, using Si0.167Ge0.762O0.071 for films deposited at room temperature. The calculated activation energy (E-a) from the slope of Arrhenius plots were varied between 0.1232 eV to 0.3788 eV. The X-ray diffraction study demonstrated that the films are amorphous but did not show any dependence on varying silicon at fixed oxygen concentration. The noise study demonstrated that these films exhibit relatively high 1/f.