Formation of island chains in SiGe/Si heteroepitaxy by elastic anisotropy

In LPE-grown semiconductor samples the formation of self-assembled nanoscale island chains along the elastically soft $〈100〉$ directions can be observed. We explain this process of self-organization by a kinetic Monte Carlo simulation of the Stranski-Krastanow growth mode, incorporating in a self-consistent way the anisotropic strain field around the nanoscale islands.