Strain compensation in SiGe by heavy boron doping was demonstrated. For this purpose, SiGe layers containing up to several percent of boron were deposited using rapid thermal chemical vapor deposition. The strain compensation effect was evaluated by double crystal x‐ray diffraction measuring the difference between the diffraction peak distances of the boron doped samples and a reference sample without boron which can be directly related to the decrease of the lattice constant in Si1−x−yGexBydue to the incorporation of boron. The films were characterized by cross‐sectional transmission electron microscopy (XTEM), Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), and secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS). ©1995 American Institute of Physics.