New aspects of misfit dislocations with regard to the manipulation of islands in hetero-epitaxial systems were investigated. The formation of highly-ordered Ge island patterns on substrates that were pre-structured by slip bands of misfit dislocations was revealed. The main sources of the ordering were found to be dislocation strain fields at the surface, and modifications of the near-surface-layer morphology that were produced by dislocation slip. The most marked ordering was observed on surfaces with Si caps, where the islands appeared to be confined to 1-dimensional rows that were aligned along slip regions on the surface. It was demonstrated that the ordering of the islands was not mediated by slip-step bunches on the surfaces. It was suggested that the ordering on non-capped substrates originated from non-uniform dislocation strain fields, and that a sharp lateral confinement of the islands on the capped substrates was mediated by the near-surface layer structure as modified by dislocation slip.

S.J.Shiryaev, F.Jensen, J.L.Hansen, J.W.Petersen, A.N.Larsen: Physical Review Letters, 1997, 78[3], 503-6