Strained germanium films in Ge/InGaAs/GaAs heterostructures: Formation of edge misfit dislocations at the Ge/InGaAs interface

Heterostructures of the “strained Ge film/artificial InGaAs layer/GaAs substrate” type have been grown by molecular beam epitaxy. A specific feature of these structures is that the plastically relaxed (buffer) InGaAs layer has the density of threading dislocations on a level of 10⁵–10⁶ cm⁻². These dislocations penetrate into the strained Ge layer to become sources of both 60° and 90° (edge) misfit dislocations (MDs). Using the transmission electron microscopy, both MD types have been found at the Ge/InGaAs interface. It has been shown that the presence of threading dislocations inherited from the buffer layer in a tensile-strained Ge film favors the formation of edge dislocations at the Ge/InGaAs interface even in the case of small elastic deformations in the strained film. Possible mechanisms of the formation of edge MDs have been considered, including (i) accidental collision of complementary parallel 60° MDs propagating in the mirror-tilted {111} planes, (ii) induced nucleation of a second 60° MD and its interaction with the primary 60° MD, and (iii) interaction of two complementary MDs after a cross-slip of one of them. Calculations have demonstrated that a critical layer thickness (h _c ) for the appearance of edge MDs is considerably smaller than h _c for 60° MDs.