A study was made of the ordered surface ripple arrays which were exhibited by continuous epitaxial InGaAs on GaAs. It was directly demonstrated, for the first time, that ripple trough locations were sources of misfit defects at the hetero-epitaxial interface. Defect nucleation could occur due to the increased stresses at such troughs. The first stress-relieving defects which were observed to form were faulted dislocation half-loops on inclined (111) planes.

A.G.Cullis, A.J.Pidduck, M.T.Emeny: Physical Review Letters, 1995, 75[12], 2368-71