Stacking faults evolution during epitaxial growths: Role of surface the kinetics

Three dimensional kinetic Monte Carlo simulations on super-lattices are applied to study the evolution of stacking faults during epitaxial growths. We show that, in the case of misoriented close packed substrates, these defects can either extend throughout the entire epilayer (i.e. extended from the substrate up to the surface) or close in dislocation loops, in dependence of the deposition conditions. We explain this behavior in terms of a surface kinetic competition between these defects and the surrounding crystal: if the local growth rate of the defect is larger compared with that of the perfect crystal the defect will expands, otherwise it will closes. This mechanisms allows to explain several experimental results on homo and hetero epitaxies. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.