A transmission electron microscopic study was made of shallowly buried dislocation networks. These dislocation networks were grain boundaries that formed between a thin GaAs layer and a GaAs substrate, joined together by wafer bonding, in order to accommodate a tilt and a twist between the 2 crystals. These grain boundaries were composed of a 1-dimensional network of mixed dislocations and of a 1-dimensional network of screw dislocations (where a 2-dimensional one was usually observed) forming hexagonal cells. These grain boundaries generated a 2-dimensional surface pattern of dilatational and compressive strains adapted to the ordered growth of nanostructures that were observed experimentally for GaAs and InGaAs nanostructures.

Dislocation Networks Adapted to Order the Growth of III-V Semiconductor Nanostructures. J.Coelho, G.Patriarche, F.Glas, I.Sagnes, G.Saint-Girons: Physica Status Solidi C, 2005, 2[6], 1933-7