Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 February 2011
Prior to relaxation of misfit strain by formation of misfit dislocations, a growing heteroepitaxial layer can relax elastically by forming surface undulations called ripples. With increasing amplitude of the ripples the misfit strain and thus stress fields grow markedly inhomogeneous, and dislocation formation may thus be triggered in areas of maximum shear stress. The surface directly above such a new dislocation then represents a band of preferential growth and develops into a ridge, which in turn redistributes the strain in the growing layer. This interwoven elastic/plastic relaxation mechanism can comparably easily be deduced from transmission electron and atomic force microscopy studies of SiGe layers grown onto silicon by liquid phase epitaxy. This growth technique exerts only very small driving forces and thus operates very near thermodynamical equilibrium. The local strain tensor and strain energy density are calculated for the actual layer geometries by three dimensional finite element method and provide for quantification of the mechanism.