Strain engineering, self-assembly, and nanoarchitectures in thin SiGe films on Si

We review recent experimental results pertaining to the self-assembly and self-ordering of quantum dots (QDs) in semiconductor systems. In particular, we focus on attempts to control the density, size, and size distributions of strained islands, both within a single strained layer and in quantum dot multilayers. We also discuss the factors affecting vertical ordering in multilayers such as the nature of the strain field produced by buried islands and the thickness of the spacer layer.