Lattice relaxation of dimer islands on Ge(001) during homoepitaxy by   pulsed laser deposition
  In low-temperature pulsed growth two-dimensional islands form and coarsen into ~10 nm features. The islands produce well-defined displaced x-ray diffraction peaks due to relaxation of anisotropic surface stress of the (2x1) reconstruction with expansion and contraction present in orthogonal directions. The relaxation carries over into multilevel islands, suggesting that domains in subsequent layers form metastable stress domains. We infer that the island distribution differs from continuous deposition, enhancing the population of monodisperded islands exhibiting anisotropic relaxation. 
Lan Zhou, Yiping Wang, Minghao Li, and Randall L. Headrick
cond-mat.mtrl-sci cond-mat.mes-hall