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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 February 2011
The development of novel optoelectronic devices using thick, defect free, strain free buffer layers mismatched to the substrate requires an understanding of the mechanisms responsible for the relaxation of the elastic strain. Using X-ray diffraction, we have studied the structural properties of partially relaxed InGaAs layers as a function of thickness and substrate misorientation and measured the residual strain. This study shows that strain free layers are difficult to achieve even for thicknesses well above the critical layer thickness. Our measurements also show that the relaxation of the strain induces geometrical effects such as a triclinic distortion of the epilayer unit cell and a tilt with respect to the substrate. These deviations from the ideal structure may seriously degrade the quality of optoelectronic active layers grown on relaxed lnGaAs buffer layers.