The energies of the intrinsic stacking faults in 20 tetrahedrally coordinated crystals, determined using electron microscopy from the widths of extended dislocations, ranged from a few mJ/m2 to 300mJ/m2. Unpublished results indicated a stacking-fault energy of 20mJ/m2 for GaN. The reduced stacking-fault energy (stacking-fault energy per bond perpendicular to the fault plane) was found to have correlations with the effective charge, the charge redistribution index of the crystals and the c/a ratio of the wurtzite structure. For many of the diamond and zincblende crystals, the wurtzite structure had also been reported to exist as a metastable phase.

Stacking Fault Energies of Tetrahedrally Coordinated Crystals. S.Takeuchi, K.Suzuki: Physica Status Solidi A, 1999, 171[1], 99-103