Interactions of moving dislocations in semiconductors with point, line and planar defects

We are assuming implicitly here that misfit dislocations are the only strain relief mechanism. In general, other mechanisms, expecially epilayer surface roughening and islanding are important, especially at higher temperatures and strains than those relevant to this work. We demonstrate that strained GeSi/Si heterostructures act as a model system for the study of the interaction of propagating dislocations with point, line and planar defects. In such heterostructures, the effective stress acting on a propagating dislocation may be varied from tens of MPa to of order 1 GPa, and the length of the propagating dislocation segment may be varied from nm to hundreds of nm. Results are presented from the interaction of strain-relieving dislocations with GeSi free surfaces, with point defects generated by ion implantation, and with other dislocations.