Dislocation dipole annihilation in diamond and silicon

Abstract

The mechanism of dislocation dipole annihilation has been investigated in C and Si using atomistic calculations with the aim of studying their annihilation by-products. It is shown, in C as well as in Si, that dipole annihilation yields debris that can be depicted as a cluster of vacancies, or alternately by two internal free surfaces. These defects have no strain field and can hardly be seen using usual TEM techniques. This suggests that the brown colouration of diamond could be due to microstructures resulting from deformation mechanisms associated with dipole formation and their annihilation rather than to a climb mechanism and vacancy aggregation. In silicon where a number of dipoles have been evidenced by TEM when dislocation trails are found, such debris could be the missing link responsible for the observation of strong chemical reactivity and electrical activity in the wake of moving dislocations. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd 2011.