An analysis was made of the nucleation of dislocations at spatially localized stress fields generated by silicon nitride pads having a high intrinsic stress. The nucleation and final configuration of the dislocations were studied by using hot-stage transmission electron microscopy and were compared with dislocation simulations based upon calculations of the stress fields around the pads. It was found that the simulated configurations matched well with the experimental data, and it was shown that the dislocation configuration could be controlled by the pad size.Controlled Nucleation of Dislocations by a Spatially Localized Stress Field. M.Kammler, D.Chidambarrao, K.W.Schwarz, C.T.Black, F.M.Ross: Applied Physics Letters, 2005, 87[13], 133116 (3pp)