Hybrid multiple diffraction in semipolar wurtzite materials: (0112)-oriented ZnMgO/ZnO heterostructures as an illustration

X-ray diffraction has been widely used to characterize the structural properties (strain and structural quality) of semiconductor heterostructures. This work employs hybrid multiple diffraction to analyze r-oriented Zn1xMgxO layers grown by molecular beam epitaxy on ZnO substrates. In such a low-symmetry material system, additional features appear in symmetric reflection scans, which are described as arising from hybrid multiple diffraction. First, the Bragg conditions necessary for these high-order processes to occur are introduced and applied to explain all the observed satellite reflections, identify the planes that contribute and compute a priori the angles at which they are observed. F…