  The mechanical stability of commercial GaP/Si templates during thermal
an-nealing and subsequent MOCVD growth of GaP and AlGaP is
investigated.Although the GaP layer of the template originally presents an
excellent surfacemorphology, annealing at high enough temperatures to remove
the native oxideprior to growth leads to plastic relaxation, accompanied by a
variety of defects,including a dense grid of micro-twins. These micro-twins
detrimentally affectGaP and AlGaP layers grown subsequently on the template.
