An investigation, using atomic force microscopy and scanning tunnelling microscopy, was made of nanoscale ErP islands which formed on InP(001) during organometallic vapor-phase epitaxial growth. Various features of the surface morphologies were observed; depending upon the growth temperature and the ErP coverage. The generation of misfit dislocation arrays along the [1¯10] direction led to an anisotropic strain relaxation that originated from the anisotropy of the atomic bonds at the interface. The residual strain of partially relaxed islands was about 2% for growth at 530C. This corresponded to a minimum total surface energy of the strained film. Current imaging tunnelling spectroscopy revealed a high tunnel current at dislocations.

Nanoscale ErP islands on InP(001) substrate grown by organometallic vapor-phase epitaxy L.Bolotov, T.Tsuchiya, T.Ito, Y.Fujiwara, Y.Takeda, A.Nakamura: Japanese Journal of Applied Physics - 1, 1999, 38[2B], 1060-3