Selective ion-channeling study of misfit dislocation grids in semiconductor heterostructures: theory and experiments

Planar dechanneling by networks of misfit dislocations was measured in a series of InxGa1-xAs/GaAs samples (001) grown by molecular-beam epitaxy. At the beginning of the strain-relaxation process the dechanneling probability exhibits different values for nominally equivalent (110) planes. At larger strain relaxation, the dechanneling probability saturates at a value around 1/2 as the beam-energy increases. In order to explain these results a new model for planar dechanneling by dislocations is proposed. This model is based on the harmonic approximation of the continuum potential but anharmonicity effects are taken into account. The perturbation to the harmonic oscillations caused by the lattice plane curvature around a dislocation is written in terms of a distortion function that depends only on the geometrical configuration of the channeling direction and of the dislocation line. This function is explicitly calculated for geometrical configurations relevant to the present samples allowing us then to solve the equation of motion. The results show that the dechanneling a probability saturates at a level sensibly lower than 100% due to the quasiplanar distribution of dislocations. Without any adjustable parameter, the comparison between computed and measured dechanneling probabilities supplies dislocation density values in excellent agreement with those measured by transmission electron microscopy and in good agreement with results deduced from previous strain-relaxation data.