Abstract. The high room-temperature carrier mobilities which have recently been observed for both electrons and holes in Si/SiGe heterostructures and the possibility of further improvements offer the prospect of silicon-based field effect transistors (FETs) with performances matching those of bipolar transistors and III-V modulation-doped FETs. In this article the electrical properties of this semiconductor system and the associated materials challenges are discussed, and some of the more important device applications are reviewed.

An erratum for this article has been published in 1999 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 32 1187

Print publication: Issue 12 (21 June 1998)
Received 14 November 1997, in final form 16 December 1997