It was noted that, at ambient temperatures and pressures, most semiconductors are brittle. This was the case of the III-V compound, InSb. To study the role of dislocation nucleation at the onset of brittle-to-ductile transition, InSb micro-pillars were fabricated by focused ion beam and in situ compressed at room temperature in a scanning electron microscope, in order to correlate the observation of slip traces at the pillar surface and features of the stress-strain curve. Transmission electron microscopy thin foils were cut out of the pillars to study the deformation microstructure. The transmission electron microscopic study of dislocations and the observation of slip traces at surfaces showed that increasing the surface-to-volume ratio of the pillars modified the dislocation nucleation conditions and favoured plasticity even at room temperature. The role of dislocation nucleation from free surfaces was thus discussed within the larger context of the micro-pillar compression technique and extrinsic size effects.

In situ Deformation of Micro-Objects as a Tool to Uncover the Micro-Mechanisms of the Brittle-to-Ductile Transition in Semiconductors: the Case of Indium Antimonide. L.Thilly, R.Ghisleni, C.Swistak, J.Michler: Philosophical Magazine, 2012, 92[25-27], 3315-25