Misfit dislocation was an important component of the semi-coherent interface. Usually, it forms a dislocation network as the strain concentration area on an interface and makes the other part coherent. This was the regular case, but there were also some exceptions. It was shown that the Ni/(Al2O3)Al interface had a reconstruction at the first monolayer of the metal side, which worked as a transition layer between Ni and Al2O3 lattices. Under these conditions, the misfit dislocation could not be confirmed by drawing a Burgers circuit because the interface was incoherent. However, due to the lattice misfit, there were areas of strain concentration and areas without strain distributed on the interface plane. So, in order to describe this strain distribution, use was again made of the concept of a dislocation network, but was redefined as the separation line between these 2 parts. As a result, it was found that the dislocation network appeared when the metal part was thicker than 12.4Å, and it shrank as the metal film grew; resulting in an ultimate structure with a mesh size of 28.1Å.

Interface Reconstruction and Dislocation Networks for a Metal/Alumina Interface - an Atomistic Approach. Y.Long, N.X.Chen: Journal of Physics - Condensed Matter, 2008, 20[13], 135005 (7pp)