EQUILIBRIUM AND METASTABLE STRAINED-LAYER SEMICONDUCTOR HETEROSTRUCTURES

Recent progress has been made in the understanding of strain accommoda tion and relief in lattice-mismatched semiconductor heterostructures. Specific recent advances include the following: improved understanding and modeling of competing strain relaxation mechanisms; quantificatio n of misfit dislocation nucleation processes; improved modeling of cri tical epilayer thickness for misfit dislocation introduction; improved understanding of misfit dislocation nucleation mechanisms; new experi mental techniques for in-situ observation of strain relaxation; new te chniques for reduction of strain-relieving dislocations; and new calcu lations of dislocation electronic structure.