We report growth, structural, and electrical properties of epitaxial Ge layers on Si (001) wafers for next generation complementary metal oxide semiconductor devices. The epi-Ge layers were grown by solid source molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) at substrate temperatures (TG) varying from 200 degrees C to 500 degrees C. A two-step growth process, where an initial layer of thickness similar to 30 nm is grown at a substrate temperature of 250 degrees C (except those grown below/at 250 degrees C), and the remaining layer is grown at a higher temperature, was found to be an efficient approach to improve the crystal quality of the Ge layers. The epi-Ge on Si exhibits bulk hole-mobility as high as 736 cm(2)/V-s at room temperature. Ti/Ge/Ti metal semiconductor -metal (MSM) back-to-back Schottky diodes, fabricated on these epitaxial Ge layers, show excellent electrical properties. Further, metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) capacitors fabricated with HfO2 as the gate oxide exhibit low leakage current density of 4.7 x 10(-2) A/cm(2) (at Vg-VFB = 1 V) and mid-gap interface trap density of 5.0 x 10(12) cm(-2)eV(-1). (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.