STRUCTURAL ASPECTS OF STRAINED LAYERS .1. APPLICATION OF THE FRANK-BILBY EQUATION TO EPITAXIAL LAYERS

A new form of the Frank-Bilby equation is developed which is particularly suitable for application to epitaxial layers. The equation relates the deformation of an elastic material to the interfacial dislocation content. By applying an elastic boundary condition, the full deformation of a strained epitaxial layer can be obtained. Several examples are considered, relating to growth of coherent and semicoherent cubic semiconductor layers on exact and offcut (001) cubic semiconductor substrates. Although the emphasis of the paper is toward semiconductor layers, it is applicable to any epitaxial system.