Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2011
Reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED) has been used to detect strain relaxation in SiGe during growth on <001>- oriented Si for various layer compositions and substrate temperatures. The RHEED-technique permits the dynamic monitoring of the in-plane lattice constant of the growing layer by measuring the distance between diffraction features. The actual RHEED pattern is recorded by a CCD camera and subsequently processed in real time by a computer. This way, the layer relaxation can be followed conveniently; a detection limit for a variation in the lattice constant of Δa/a=5.10−4 has been obtained.