Ordering-Enhanced Dislocation Glide in III-V Alloys

Ordering-induced effects on dislocations in metallic alloys have been extensively studied due to their importance in technology applications. We demonstrate that dislocation behavior in ordered III-V semiconductor alloys can be drastically different. This is because ordering in bulk metallic alloys is generally stable, whereas the surface-stabilized group-III sublattice ordering of a III-V alloy is only metastable in the bulk. Here, we show that dislocation glide can release some of the energy stored by ordering of III-V alloys, enhancing the glide of any dislocation which cuts through the ordered layers to create an antiphase boundary in the ordering pattern. This leads to an experimentally observed glide-plane switch which is unique to ordered III-V alloys. Implications for other unique strain-relaxation processes in III-V ordered alloys are also discussed.