  We first report a detailed transmission electron microscopy study of
dislocation networks (DNs) formed at shallowly buried interfaces obtained by
bonding two GaAs crystals between which we establish in a controlled manner a
twist and a tilt around a k110l direction. For large enough twists, the DN
consists of a twodimensional network of screw dislocations accommodating mainly
the twist and of a one-dimensional network of mixed dislocations accommodating
mainly the tilt. We show that in addition the mixed dislocations accommodate
part of the twist and we observe and explain slight unexpected disorientations
of the screw dislocations with respect to the k110l directions. By performing a
quantitative analysis of the whole DN, we propose a coherent interpretation of
these observations which also provides data inaccessible by direct experiments.
When the twist is small enough, one screw subnetwork vanishes. The surface
strain field induced by such DNs has been used to pilot the lateral ordering of
GaAs and InGaAs nanostructures during metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy. We
prove that the dimensions and orientations of the nanostructures are correlated
with those of the cells of the underlying DN and explain how the interface
dislocation structure governs the formation of the nanostructures.
