Mesoscopic Variance of Dislocation Displacements in Crystalline Materials

It is shown that a large variance of dislocation displacements found experimentally and its long relaxation to a steady value in semiconductor materials can be explained by the stochastic nature of the dislocation-kink formation. This stochastic nature results in the development of dislocation line roughness described by the scaling relations, including the mesoscopic time and space scales. Mapping the problem onto the well-examined polynuclear growth model provides a comprehensive description of the self-similar evolution of dislocation shapes and enables to estimate dislocation dynamics parameters. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of ICM11