three-dimensional X-ray reciprocal-space mapping of InGaAs multilayer structures grown on GaAs(001) by MBE

Sasaki, Takuo; Takahashi, Masamitsu; Suzuki, Hidetoshi*; Oshita, Yoshio*; Yamaguchi, Masafumi*

three-dimensional X-ray reciprocal space mapping ( 3D-RSM) was employed for studying molecular beam epitaxial (MBE) growth of InGaAs multilayer structures on GaAs(001). Measuring the symmetric 004 diffraction allowed us to separately obtain film properties of individual layers and to track the real-time evolution of both residual strain and lattice tilting. In two- layer growth of InGaAs, significant plastic relaxation was observed during the upper layer growth, and its critical thickness was experimentally determined. At the same thickness, it was found that the direction of lattice tilting drastically changed. We discuss these features based on the Dunstan model and confirm that strain relaxation in the multilayer structure is induced by two kinds of dislocation motion (dislocation multiplication and the generation of dislocation half-loops).