Dependence of critical layer thickness on temperature for lattice-mismatched materials

Abstract

The growth dynamics of dislocations in lattice-mismatched materials is explained by two consecutive processes. The first is dislocation creation and glide along the directions of close packing in the lattice. The second is the dislocation growth or climb process, which is perpendicular to the glide direction. The Matthews' formula for the critical layer thickness hc, [12], is a proper formula to predict the hc values in the first process. The strong temperature dependence of the second process explains the temperature dependence of critical layer thickness observed experimentally, since the climb process brings the dislocation from the interface through the layers.