The introduction of a surfactant changes the growth in the Si(111)/Ge
system from islanding to a continuous film. A Sb monolayer floats at t
he growth front without detectable incorporation in the growing film.
The surfactant strongly influences the growth kinetics and prevents in
termixing or indiffusion of Ge or Si. Up to 8 ML thickness the Ge film
is completely strained and pseudomorphic; for thicker films the strai
n due to the 4.2% misfit is relieved by the generation of defects, whi
ch are finally all confined in a dislocation network at the interface.
Low-defect, fully relaxed epitaxial Ge films of arbitrary thickness c
an be grown. Similarly, low-defect relaxed Si can be grown on Ge(111).
Medium-energy ion scattering, high-resolution transmission electron m
icroscopy, x-ray-photoelectron spectroscopy, and Raman scattering show
that the crystal quality of these Ge films is excellent.