Strain‐Engineered Germanium Microbridge LED With Silicon Nitride Stressor

ABSTRACT Germanium (Ge) has garnered significant attention in the field of silicon‐based monolithic light sources as an attractive material. Silicon nitride is widely used in optoelectronic devices due to its excellent optical properties. By using silicon nitride as a stressor to introduce tensile strain into Ge, the band structure of Ge can be tuned, enhancing the radiative recombination of direct bandgap emission. A LED with silicon nitride as a stressor is proposed in this paper. Simulation results demonstrate that the device has been introduced to a 3% uniaxial tensile strain, resulting in peak electroluminescence at 1986 nm and a maximum electro‐optical conversion efficiency of 1.94%, indicating excellent performance in the short infrared wavelength range. This work provides a method for achieving more efficient silicon‐based group IV light sources.