Submicron beam X-ray diffraction of nanoheteroepitaxily grown GaN: Experimental challenges and calibration procedures

Highly relaxed GaN nanodots and submicron ridges have been selectively grown in the NSAG regime using MOVPE on lattice mismatched 6H–SiC and AlN substrates. 2D real space and 3D reciprocal space mapping was performed with a CCD detector using 10.4 keV synchrotron X-ray radiation at the 2-ID-D micro-diffraction beamline at Advanced Photon Source (APS). Calibration procedures have been developed to overcome the unique challenges of analyzing NSAG structures grown on highly mismatched substrates. We studied crystallographic planar bending on the submicron scale and found its correlation with strain relaxation in the NSAG ridges.