Most dislocations which were introduced, by plastic deformation, into samples having the wurtzite structure had an a-type Burgers vector. Dislocations on prismatic planes were not dissociated, as observed using weak-beam electron microscopy. The high-resolution electron microscopy of basal dislocations revealed that both the dissociated and undissociated states were stable. From the widths of dissociated basal dislocations, as observed by means of weak-beam electron microscopy, the energy of the intrinsic stacking fault was estimated to be 22mJ/m2. This value was consistent with a correlation, which had been previously noted, between the reduced stacking-fault energy and the c/a ratio of a wurtzite crystal.

Electron Microscopy of Dislocations Introduced into GaN by Plastic Deformation. K.Suzuki, S.Takeuchi: Philosophical Magazine Letters, 1999, 79[7], 423-8