Patent ID: 8912081

Claim:
A method for relaxing a strained material layer, the method comprising: providing a low-viscosity layer on a first face of a strained material layer; forming a stiffening layer on at least one part of a second face of the strained material layer so that lateral edges of the strained material layer are exposed, wherein the second face is opposite to the first face, thereby forming a multilayer stack by depositing a continuous layer of stiffening material on the strained material layer and subsequently patterning the deposited layer to at least partially remove part of the deposited layer from the strained material layer and at least expose the lateral edges of the strained material layer; and subjecting the multilayer stack to a heat treatment thereby at least partially relaxing the strained material layer, wherein the patterning the strained material layer is performed before the heat treatment thereby forming the strained material layer as a plurality of islands of strained material, wherein the stiffening layer is patterned such that islands of the stiffening layer are formed on the islands of the strained material, and wherein the patterning of the deposited layer and the subjecting of the multilayer stack to the heat treatment are repeated in this order at least once.