The effect of growth temperature, deposition rate, and substrate misorientation angle on size, density, and uniformity of InP islands grown on (100) GaAs by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy is investigated. The density of InP islands is observed to remain constant as a function of growth temperature in the temperature range of 620–680 °C. Below 620 °C the island density increases with decreasing temperature. Above 605 °C a subset of islands having a uniform size is observed. The degree of uniformity depends largely on the deposition rate and the size of the uniform islands on the growth temperature. ©1995 American Institute of Physics.