Thermal strain in indium phosphide on silicon obtained by epitaxial lateral overgrowth

High-resolution x-ray diffraction reciprocal lattice mapping and low-temperature photoluminescence (PL) were used to study the thermal strain in InP layers grown on Si (001) substrate by hydride vapor-phase epitaxial lateral overgrowth (ELO) technique. Good agreement is found between the PL and x-ray measurements. We show that strain in the grown ELO InP/Si layers is affected by the aspect ratio (width to height ratio) of the ELO InP layer. Almost strain-free InP layer with high crystallographic quality is obtained on Si substrate, which is similar to that of a homoepitaxial InP layer. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.