Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 February 2011
The crystalline structure of metamorphic heterostructures grown by epitaxy has been studied by digital processing of High Resolution Electron Microscopy (HREM) images. Two systems have been investigated: the GaSb/(001)GaAs, known to be fully relaxed by a perfect Lomer dislocation network and the GaAs/(001)InP relaxed by partial and 60° dislocations randomly distributed. A transition zone can be defined between the perfect substrate and the relaxed epitaxial layer: its thickness is less than 20Å in GaSb/GaAs and more than 80Å in GaAs/InP. These results indicate that the misfit dislocations are only one of the elements involved in the relaxation of misfit stress.