Numerical simulations were used to study various dislocation interactions which were expected to occur when a strained epitaxial layer relaxed. Frank-Read sources located on parallel glide planes were shown to produce elaborate network patterns of dislocations in the unstrained substrate of the layer. Frank-Read sources on intersecting glide planes produced characteristic corner-pile-up structures which had previously been attributed to a so-called modified Frank-Read source mechanism. The blocking of threading arms by misfit dislocations was found to occur only very near to the critical strain. A much more important mechanism which prevented ideal layer relaxation appeared to be the formation of immobile pairs of threading dislocations on parallel glide planes.

Simulation of Dislocations on the Mesoscopic Scale - II. Application to Strained-Layer Relaxation. K.W.Schwarz: Journal of Applied Physics, 1999, 85[1], 120-9