New Relaxation Mechanism in Short Period Si/Ge Strained-Layer Superlattices

High quality Si/Ge strained-layer superlattices composed of a sequence of alternating 3 monolayers pure Si and 9 monolayers pure Ge have been grown by molecular beam epitaxy at 310°C on Ge(001) substrates. In order to investigate the transition from coherent to incoherent growth in these tensily strained structures a set of samples with varying number of superlattice periods has been studied by transmission electron microscopy. It is found that superlattices as thick as 33 nm at least show perfect and defect-free layer growth whereas for thicker superlattices strain accommodation occurs. For this strained heteroepitaxial system we observed, to our knowledge, for the first time the formation of microtwins as the only relaxation mechanism. High-resolution lattice imaging reveals that the twin lamellae result from successive glide of 90° (a/6)<112> Shockley partial dislocations on adjacent {111} planes from the surface towards the bulk. The activation barrier which has to be overcome in the case of 90° partial dislocations is compared with the energies required for the nucleation of 60° perfect and 30° partial misfit dislocation half-loops.