Nature of Stacking-Fault Defects in Epitaxial Silicon Layers

Abstract

The nature of the ``triangular'' defects in (111) oriented epitaxial silicon layers is derived without resorting to the assumption that the stair‐rod partial dislocations at the bends of the {111} faulted planes are of the lowest‐energy type α/6〈110〉. In addition, it is shown that the stair‐rod partial dislocations at the four bends of the ``square'' defects in (100) oriented layers cannot all be of the lowest energy type α/6〈110〉; instead, the two possible lowest energy forms of the ``square'' defects are those for which the stair‐rod dislocations at all four bends are of the α/3〈100〉 type.