Observation of partial relaxation mechanisms via anisotropic strain relief on epitaxial islands using semiconductor nanomembranes

Autor: Barbara L. T. Rosa, Angelo Malachias, Luciana Dornellas Pinto, L. A. B. Marçal, Rodrigo R. de Andrade, Wagner N. Rodrigues, Patricia L. Souza, Ricardo Nunes, Mauricio P. Pires
Rok vydání: 2017
Předmět:
Zdroj: Nanotechnology. 28:305702
ISSN: 1361-6528
0957-4484
DOI: 10.1088/1361-6528/aa78e7
Popis: In this work we attempt to directly observe anisotropic partial relaxation of epitaxial InAs islands using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and synchrotron x-ray diffraction on a 15 nm thick InAs:GaAs nanomembrane. We show that under such conditions TEM provides improved real-space statistics, allowing the observation of partial relaxation processes that were not previously detected by other techniques or by usual TEM cross section images. Besides the fully coherent and fully relaxed islands that are known to exist above previously established critical thickness, we prove the existence of partially relaxed islands, where incomplete 60° half-loop misfit dislocations lead to a lattice relaxation along one of the 〈110〉 directions, keeping a strained lattice in the perpendicular direction. Although individual defects cannot be directly observed, their implications to the resulting island registry are identified and discussed within the frame of half-loops propagations.
Databáze: OpenAIRE