Investigation of cross-hatch surface and study of anisotropic relaxation and dislocation on InGaAs on GaAs (001)

Abstract

There exist discrepancies between reports on cross-hatch (CH) behaviour and its interaction with interfacial misfit dislocations in the literature. In this work, a thorough CH analysis has been presented by use of conventional and statistical analysis of AFM data. It has been shown that correlation between cross-hatch and misfit dislocation depends on the growth conditions and residual strain. Anisotropic relaxation and dislocations, composition and epitaxial tilt have been studied by HRXRD analysis. To illustrate these findings, molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) grown metamorphic InGaAs on GaAs (001) samples have been used. Reciprocal space mapping has been used to characterize the composition and relaxation while epilayer tilt and dislocation have been investigated by HRXRD rocking curve. A better understanding of CH pattern can enable us to minimize the surface roughness for metamorphic electronic devices and to fully utilize the quasi-periodic undulation in cross-hatch in applications, like ordered quantum dot growth.