In situ real-time stress monitoring was used to study the kinetics of stress relaxation during molecular beam epitaxy growth of strained thin films of InxGa1–xAs/GaAs. Measurements of the temperature-dependent relaxation behavior obtained at 443 and 469C were presented. To study the relationship between the dislocation structure and the stress relaxation, samples were grown to different thicknesses for transmission electron microscopy analysis. The combination of the information from the real-time stress monitoring and observations from transmission electron microscopy provides insight into the mechanisms of stress relaxation.

Dislocation Structure and Relaxation Kinetics in InGaAs/GaAs Heteroepitaxy. C.Lynch, E.Chason, R.Beresford, E.B.Chen, D.C.Paine: Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology B, 2002, 20[3], 1247-50