Current knowledge concerning macroscopic plasticity (hardness, yield strength) and microscopic plasticity (velocity of individual dislocations) in elemental and IV-IV, III-V or II-VI semiconductors, including GaN and ZnSe, were considered with regard to their mutual correlations. The Vickers hardness of the semiconductors could provide conventional information on the material plasticity over a wide temperature range up to their melting point, over a wide range of size-scales and in various material forms. The hardness, Hv, of diamond- and sphalerite-type semiconductors had a universal relationship to their temperature dependence, similar to that of the yield strength, τy, giving: Hv = (70-100)τy in the low-temperature region. The yield strengths obtained by normal tensile or compression tests were expressed as a function of the strain rate and temperature. The velocities of various types of dislocation, measured directly in several semiconductors, were described as a function of the stress and the temperature. Via an analysis of the yield strength data in terms of the collective motion of dislocations during plastic deformation, the dislocation motion and rate-controlling plastic deformation, were deduced. The activation energy for dislocation motion had a linear relationship to the band-gap energy; depending upon the type of semiconductor.

Hardness, Yield Strength, and Dislocation Velocity in Elemental and Compound Semiconductors. I.Yonenaga: Materials Transactions, 2005, 46[9], 1979-85