  Strain solitons are quasi-dislocations that form in van der Waals materials
to relieve the energy associated with lattice or rotational mismatch in the
crystal. Novel and unusual electronic properties of strain solitons have been
both predicted and observed. To date, strain solitons have only been observed
in exfoliated crystals or mechanically strained bulk crystals. The lack of a
scalable approach towards the generation of strain solitons poses a significant
challenge in the study of and use of the properties of strain solitons. Here we
report the formation of strain solitons with epitaxial growth of bismuth on an
InSb (111)B substrate by molecular beam epitaxy. The morphology of the strain
solitons for films of varying thickness is characterized with scanning
tunneling microscopy and the local strain state is determined from the analysis
of atomic resolution images. Bending in the solitons is attributed due to
interactions with the interface, and large angle bending is associated with
edge dislocations. Our results enable the scalable generation of strain
solitons.
