A New Approach for Determining Epilayer Strain Relaxation and Composition Through High Resolution X-Ray Diffraction

Abstract

ABSTRACTWe developed a new method of determining epilayer relaxation (along one direction) and composition using a symmetric and any single asymmetric high resolution x-ray diffraction scan. The previous use of small angle approximations can be very detrimental to calculated results and should be avoided. This new method does not employ small angle approximations or first order Taylor approximations, producing accurate results. The effect of x-ray geometry (glancing incident versus glancing exit) on the analysis of epilayer composition and strain is also reviewed. It is also shown that the glancing exit geometry is generally less susceptible to experimental error.