Elastic misfit stress relaxation in highly strained InGaAs/GaAs structures

Abstract

The strain contrasts associated with three-dimensional coherently strained islands formed during the epitaxial growth of highly strained In0.45Ga0.55As layers on GaAs (001) have been studied by transmission electron microscopy. It is demonstrated that the comparison of these experimental strain contrasts with simulated profiles makes it possible to assess the elastic relaxation of the islands.