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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 February 2011
Nanoindentations were created in the GaAs(100) surface to act as strain centers for the controlled nucleation and patterning of InAs quantum dots. A systematic approach is taken to understand the indent deformation processes that may lead to precision patterning capabilities for a broad range of nanostructures. Indents were generated using loads below 450 μN with a sharp cube corner indenter. Site-specific cross-sectional thinning of nanoindents (down to 100 nm in size) has been achieved using the in-situ ‘lift-out’ technique. This allowed for observation of subsurface deformation by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The crystal was observed to deform solely by dislocation activity with no evidence of amorphization, twinning, fracture, or phase transformation. It is shown that the single phase deformation of GaAs can be well characterized and controlled, which should allow for exploitation of the dislocation strain field to bias nucleation of self-assembled quantum dots.