The measurement of the density of two-dimensional islands by scanning tunneling microscopy after sub-monolayer growth was used to determine the strain dependence of surface diffusion. Templates of strained and relaxed Ge surfaces with the same surface reconstruction were prepared for comparison. The diffusion barrier for Ge and Si adatoms was found to increase with increasing compressive strain of the Ge(111) substrate. When

the strain increased from relaxed Ge to Ge strained to the Si lattice constant, the diffusion barrier was estimated to increase by ~0.060eV.

Influence of Strain on Diffusion at Ge(111) Surfaces. V.Cherepanov, B.Voigtländer: Applied Physics Letters, 2002, 81[25], 4745-7