Channeling is used to describe defects associated with molecular‐beam epitaxy growth of (001) ZnTe on (001) GaAs. A high dislocation density (2×1011/cm2) is found in the immediate vicinity of the interface, in addition to misfit dislocations at the interface. Channeling is found to be a strain sensitive method useful for misfit dislocation analysis. Direct scattering on misfit dislocations together with elastic theory calculations reveals that the extent of the misfit dislocation elastic field increases with the interface roughness.