Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2011
The growth of Al on (111) Si single crystal substrates by various techniques usually leads to films with (111) texture, sometimes with a small (100) component. Using X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy, the present study shows that the (100) texture component can be enhanced to the point of forming an oriented (100) continuous tricrystal structure. The formation of this texture is shown to be related the presence of Cu. It is concluded that an understanding of heteroepitaxy must take into account the effect of chemistry in addition to the crystallographic criteria of lattice matching.