Influence of interface dislocations on surface kinetics during epitaxial growth of InGaAs

The correlation between surface striations and misfit dislocations at the interface has been studied on InxGa1-xAs single layers (x < 0.25), as a function of the growth parameters (substrate temperature and deposition rate), by means of atomic force and transmission electron microscopies, It is concluded that both features may be initially linked by mechanical causes (elastic displacement fields), but eventually evolve in a different way due to the surface kinetic effects. The range of growth conditions for an optimum surface quality is determined. A simplified treatment of the diffusion equation, in which the effect of the surface on the dislocation stress field is included, has allowed an estimation of the effective mean free path between collisions for the group III adatoms in the range of a few Angstrom. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.