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research papers
We present a structural study of nearly perfect triangular pyramidal Ge islands grown on Boron-terminated Si(111). Using atomic force microscopy we show that these islands are strongly ordered in the direction perpendicular to the miscut induced terrace steps of the substrate. We use grazing incidence small-angle X-ray scattering to assess the island shape and size distribution. In this geometry the scattered wave amplitude is composed of four terms, including all combinations of scattering from the islands and reflection from the substrate. We finally show that this technique is able to determine the complete symmetry of arbitrary shaped objects on a substrate.