Energetics of dislocation dipoles in capped epitaxially strained layers

Abstract

Most device structures based on strained epitaxial layers are capped by a second, unstrained layer to increase the mechanical stability of the structure. In order to calculate the energies of these structures it is necessary to synthesize the total energy from the energies of the line defects they contain (interfacial dislocations and dislocation dipoles). The self energies and interaction energies of dislocations and dipoles are calculated and their behavior examined as a function of their spacing and the thicknesses of the strained and capping layers. The results confirm the observations that capped strained layers are more stable than uncapped ones (of the same strained layer thickness) and that capping layers do not need to be thicker than approximately three times the strained layer thickness. An expression is deduced for the total energy of finite, nonuniform arrays of dipoles in capped layers and, by analogy with a similar earlier expression for dislocations in uncapped layers, it is concluded that the effect of a nonuniformity in the dipole spacing will be to increase the energy of the system compared with that of a uniform array having the same average spacing. The results in this paper can be used to assess the stability of devices and their rate of degradation by strain relaxation.