ELASTIC RELAXATION OF DRY-ETCHED SI SIGE QUANTUM DOTS/

Elastic relaxation of the compressive strain due to the lattice mismat ch between SiGe and Si has been studied with both x-ray diffraction an d Raman scattering in small (30-100 nm) dry-etched Si/SiGe quantum dot s fabricated from high-quality multilayers grown on (001)-oriented Si. The Raman spectroscopic investigations showed that the dot alloy laye rs have relaxed by approximately 65% from their fully strained value a nd that a compensating tensile strain has been induced in the Si layer s. The relaxation is essentially independent of the dot size and the v alues derived experimentally compare well with analytical and numerica l model calculations.