A high-concentration in-situ phosphorus-doping technique for silicon low-temperature epitaxial growth with Si2H6 has been developed. Growth temperature has an impact on the crystal quality and on lattice strain of phosphorus-doped silicon layers. Resistivity, micro-Raman spectroscopy, and high-resolution Xray diffraction indicated that good crystal quality was achieved at a growth temperature of 525 degrees C. On the other hand, growth pressure has little influence on crystal quality or on lattice strain except for surface morphology. By optimizing epitaxial growth conditions, an extremely high concentration of phosphorous doping was achieved without a high-temperature activation annealing, and the resultant good crystal quality of the phosphorus-doped silicon layer gave a very low resistivity. Accordingly, the high-concentration in-situ phosphorus doping is a powerful technique to fabricate future ultra-high-speed SiGe HBTs. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.