MeV ion irradiation of GaAs crystals at room temperature has shown that
the lattice strain perpendicular to the sample surface saturates to ~0.47% for
cut and ~0.3% for and cut crystals with zero parallel strain
in all cases. In this paper, the thermal recovery behavior of the saturated
strain in GaAs (100) is presented for a 15 min isochronal annealing. The recovery
of strain depth profile is shown explicitly by a dynamical theory analysis
of the x-ray rocking curves taken after each annealing step. The isochronal
recovery behavior of strain suggests that a spectrum of activation energies is
involved in the thermal migration of defects in the saturated surface layer.
This also suggests that many kinds of antisite defect complexes exist in the
surface layer. The strain and related defects are also shown to saturate in
MeV ion bombarded GaP (100) crystals. This may indicate that all the primary
defects (interstitials, vacancies, and antisite defects) saturate under MeV ion
irradiation of III-V compounds, and support the proposed ion-lattice single
collision model of defect production and saturation under MeV ion irradiation.
The linewidths of x-ray rocking curves obtained from GaP crystals bombarded at
room temperature and at ~490 K indicate that low- temperature recovery stage
defects cause major crystal distortion in III-V compounds. Also presented are
the isochronal annealing behaviors of lattice strain, x-ray broadening, and peak
reflecting power of room temperature irradiated GaP (100) crystals