Lateral ordering of self-organized quantum dots in a SiGe/Si (001) multilay
er has been investigated by grazing incidence x-ray diffraction and Monte C
arlo growth simulation. It has been demonstrated that the lateral ordering
stems from the elastic anisotropy of the crystal. From the reciprocal space
map of the scattered intensity it follows that the dots create a disordere
d square grid with the axes along [100] and [010]. Both the orientation of
the array axes and the mean dot distance have been obtained from the growth
simulation.