Strain driven migration of In during the growth of InAs/GaAs quantum posts

TL;DR

This paper investigates how strain influences indium atom migration during InAs/GaAs quantum post growth, revealing that strain can cause In detachment and diffusion, affecting nanostructure formation.

Contribution

It introduces a mechano-optical stress sensor technique and models strain fields to explain strain-driven indium migration during quantum post growth.

Findings

Observed reduction in compressive stress during InAs deposition.

Strain-driven detachment and surface diffusion of In atoms.

Correlation between strain fields and nanostructure formation.

Abstract

Using the mechano-optical stress sensor technique, we observe a counter-intuitive reduction of the compressive stress when InAs is deposited on GaAs (001) during growth of quantum posts. Through modelling of the strain fields, we find that such anomalous behaviour can be related to the strain-driven detachment of In atoms from the crystal and their surface diffusion towards the self-assembled nanostructures.