Growth of nanostructures on composition-modulated InAlAs surfaces

InAs self-organized nanostructures were grown with variant deposition thickness and growth rate on closely matched InAlAs/InP by molecular-beam epitaxy. The structural properties of InAs and InAlAs layer were studied. It is found that the InAs morphology is insensitive to the growth conditions. Transmission electron microscopy and reflectance difference spectroscopy measurements show that the InAlAs matrix presents lateral composition modulation which gives birth to surface anisotropy. Based on the dependence of the InAs morphology on the anisotropy of the InAlAs layer, a modified Stranski–Krastanow growth mode is presented to describe the growth of the nanostructure on a composition-modulated surface.