Buffer layer strain transfer in AlN/GaN near critical thickness

X-ray diffraction has been employed to investigate the strain relaxation of both components of a GaN/AlN bilayer on sapphire (0001) as a function of the GaN layer thickness. Below a critical thickness, GaN and AlN both relax with the same in-plane lattice constant, consistent with the energy minimum condition of elasticity theory for a bilayer. Above the critical thickness, however, the strain relaxations in the two layers were different. We can fit this strain relaxation behavior with a free standing bilayer model with an additional term describing the interaction of dislocations. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979(99)00608-8].