Stress relief in magnetic garnet films grown by liquid phase epitaxy

Abstract

Magnetic garnet epilayers with lattice parameters more than 0.041 larger than the nonmagnetic garnet substrates on which they were grown, are shown to be stress relieved and contain between 3×10 7 and 1×10 8 dislocations per cm 2 . The dislocations give rise to what has been called “faceting” in highly compressive films, and evidence suggests that they are half loops with misfit segments parallel to the interface. The misfit segments do not always lie at the interface, but rather their distance from the interface decreases with increasing mismatch, while the degree of stress relief in the dislocated films increases with increasing mismatch.