The full 3-dimensional Peach-Koehler formalism was implemented numerically and was used to investigate interactions between threading dislocations and misfit dislocations in a strained epitaxial layer. The possible outcomes of such interactions were found to include blocking, binding, repulsive passing and attractive instabilities. The attractive instabilities could lead to reconnection, kink creation and jog creation; depending upon the Burgers vectors involved. It was shown that blocking was a weak effect, and that the peculiar substrate pile-up structures which had previously been attributed to a so-called modified Frank-Read mechanism were actually a natural consequence of having sources which operated on intersecting glide planes.

Interaction of Dislocations on Crossed Glide Planes in a Strained Epitaxial Layer. K.W.Schwarz: Physical Review Letters, 1997, 78[25], 4785-8