Partial Dislocations and Critical Thicknesses for Strained Layer Relaxation

Partial dislocations and their associated stacking faults are identified as the primary defects responsible for the initial relaxation of tensile-strained layers of fcc structure. The critical thickness for the formation of 90° partial dislocations at the strained interface is almost a factor of two smaller than that predicted for the formation of 60° perfect dislocation. Microstructures revealed by transmission electron microscopy from strained layers of various lattice mismatches and thicknesses agree with the prediction of the standard free-energy minimization model.