The effect of the growth procedure and the InAs amount on the formation of strain-induced islands in the InAs/InP(001) system

Using the strain-induced 2D–3D transition, InAs dots have been grown on InP(001) by gas source molecular beam epitaxy and examined by transmission electron microscopy. Various InAs amounts have been deposited, and the islands were either capped or uncapped. Small strained islands, large strained ones, and plastically relaxed ones were observed, showing that different degrees of relaxation have been achieved depending on these growth parameters. Comparison of capped and uncapped islands showed that the island evolution was stopped by the island coverage. The comparison of islands obtained for different deposited amounts suggests that the inter-island interactions can delay the island evolution towards a higher degree of relaxation. Finally, the elastic interaction between islands was calculated by the finite-element method.