Asymmetric relaxation of SiGe/Si(110) investigated by high-resolution x-ray diffraction reciprocal space mapping

• Strain relaxation of SiGe/Si(110) has been studied by x-ray reciprocal space mapping. To get information about the in-plane lattice mismatch in different directions, two-dimensional maps around, e.g., (260) and (062) reciprocal lattice points have been obtained from Si0.8Ge0.2/Si(110) samples, which were exposed to different annealing conditions. The in-plane lattice mismatch was found to be asymmetric with the major strain relaxation observed in the lateral [001] direction. This was associated with the formation and propagation of dislocations oriented along [10]. The relaxation of as-grown structures during postannealing is thus different from relaxation during growth, which is mainly along [10].    

Keyword

Ge-Si alloys

silicon

semiconductor materials

elemental semiconductors

X-ray diffraction

annealing

dislocations

stress relaxation

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