Dislocations as a source of micropipe development in the growth of silicon carbide

Abstract

Micropipes are the primary macroscopic defects in silicon carbide single crystals. It is shown that a stable hollow core of dislocation can act as an initial site of micropipe development. The specific strain energy necessary to estimate the thermodynamic stability of a hollow dislocation core is expressed in terms of the macroscopic parameters of the material Young’s modulus and of the Gruneisen constant.