The mechanisms leading to the spontaneous formation of a two-dimensional array of InP/InGaP dots grown by chemical-beam epitaxy are discussed. Samples where the InGaP buffer layer was grown at different conditions were characterized by transmission electron microscopy. Our results indicate that a periodic strain field related to lateral two-dimensional compositional modulation in the InGaP buffer layer determines the dot nucleation positions during InP growth. Although the periodic strain field in the InGaP is large enough to align the InP dots, both their shape and optical properties are effectively unaltered. This result shows that compositional modulation can be used as a tool for in situ dot positioning. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics.871