Simultaneous nanometer-scale measurements of the strain and surface undulation distributions of strained Si (s-Si) layers on strain-relief quadruple-Si 1- x Ge x -layer buffers, using a combined atomic force microscopy (AFM) and tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) system, clarify that an s-Si sample formed by our previously proposed sputter epitaxy method has a smoother and more uniformly strained surface than an s-Si sample formed by gas-source molecular beam epitaxy. The TERS analyses suggest that the compositional fluctuation of the underlying Si 1- x Ge x buffer layer is largely related to the weak s-Si strain fluctuation of the sputtered sample.
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Hanafusa et al. (2011) studied this question.