Electron-hole superfluidity in strained Si/Ge type II heterojunctions

Sara Conti; Samira Saberi Pouya; Andrea Perali; Michele Virgilio; Francois M. Peeters; Alexander R. Hamilton; Giordano Scappucci; David Neilson

arXiv · 2012.05631

Electron-hole superfluidity in strained Si/Ge type II heterojunctions

Sara Conti·Samira Saberi Pouya·Andrea Perali·Michele Virgilio·Francois M. Peeters·Alexander R. Hamilton·Giordano Scappucci·David Neilson

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Abstract

Excitons are promising candidates for generating superfluidity and Bose-Einstein Condensation (BEC) in solid state devices, but an enabling material platform with in-built bandstructure advantages and scaling compatibility with industrial semiconductor technology is lacking. Here we predict that spatially indirect excitons in a lattice-matched strained Si/Ge bilayer embedded into a germanium-rich SiGe crystal, would lead to observable mass-imbalanced electron-hole superfluidity and BEC. Holes would be confined in a compressively strained Ge quantum well and electrons in a lattice-matched tensile strained Si quantum well. We envision a device architecture that does not require an insulating barrier at the Si/Ge interface, since this interface offers a type II band alignment. Thus the electrons and holes can be kept very close but strictly separate, strengthening the electron-hole pairing attraction while preventing fast electron-hole recombination. The band alignment also allows a one-step procedure for making independent contacts to the electron and hole layers, overcoming a significant obstacle to device fabrication. We predict superfluidity at experimentally accessible temperatures of a few Kelvin and carrier densities up to $\sim 6\times 10^{10}$ cm$^{-2}$, while the large imbalance of the electron and hole effective masses can lead to exotic superfluid phases.

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Sara Conti, Samira Saberi Pouya, Andrea Perali, Michele Virgilio, Francois M. Peeters, Alexander R. Hamilton, Giordano Scappucci, David Neilson. 2020-12-10. Electron-hole superfluidity in strained Si/Ge type II heterojunctions. https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.05631

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