Injection‐stimulated dislocation motion in semiconductors

Misfit dislocations introduced during LPE growth are shown to act as sinks for point defects introduced by 1‐MeV electron bombardment in Ga1−xAlxAs1−yPy/GaAs p+n heterojunctions. Electron‐beam‐stimulated dislocation motion was observed directly with in situ TEM studies on previously bombarded material. SEM measurements have correlated beam‐induced defect annealing with recombination‐enhanced defect motion. These results suggest that dislocation networks, which are active in the dark‐line‐defect degradation mode of heterostructure lasers, may form by a climb mechanism which is activated by the injection‐stimulated motion of point defects.