Surface flattening of Ge using oxygen reduction reaction enhanced by catalysts in water

Investigation of catalyst materials

Abstract

Ge is expected as a high mobility channel material in the next generation. However, the surface roughness of Ge is inferior to that of Si, and a novel flattening process is required. At first, we performed to flatten a Ge surface utilizing the selective oxidation and the dissolution of the protrusions on a Ge surface. In this experiment, Pt was used as the catalyst which reduced oxygen molecules dissolved in water. Although the obtained surface was flattened, we anticipated that the removal of residual Pt particles from the treated Ge surface was extremely difficult. Thus we begin to develop metal-free carbon-based catalysts to promote the oxygen reduction reaction. In this report, we investigated their oxygen reduction activity mainly by electrochemical measurements.