Surface step effects on Si (100) under uniaxial tensile stress, by atomistic calculations

This paper reports a study of the influence of the step at a silicon surface under an uniaxial tensile stress, using an empirical potential. Our aim was to find conditions leading to nucleation of dislocations from the step. We obtained that no dislocations could be generated with such conditions. This behaviour, different from the one predicted for metals, could be attributed either to the covalent bonding or to the cubic diamond structure.