The initial degradation of II-VI light-emitting devices, such as (100) dark-line defect formation in quantum-well structures during laser or light-emitting diode operation, was investigated. Optically degraded quantum-well structures which exhibited dark-line defects were studied by means of transmission electron microscopy. The observable dislocation networks were found to be conglomerations of dislocation loops that were confined to the quantum-well region and had associated Burgers vectors of a[100] or a[010].

G.D.U’Ren, G.M.Haugen, P.F.Baude, M.A.Haase, K.K.Law, T.J.Miller, B.J.Wu: Applied Physics Letters, 1995, 67[26], 3862-4