Dynamic self-organization of strained islands during SiGe epitaxial growth

Dynamic self-organization of coherently strained islands during SiGe molecular beam epitaxy on Si(001) is measured in real time using a novel spectroscopic light scattering technique. We show that an array of hut clusters self-orders on a square mesh with increasing areal coverage. Ordering occurs to minimize the repulsive elastic interactions between neighboring islands. Self-organization breaks down when islands coalesce during deposition or during static coarsening.