Theoretical and experimental determination of the initial stage of plastic relaxation of misfit stresses in a (111) substrate-film islands heterosystem

A model for determining the critical thickness of a film h _c is developed to introduce misfit dislocations in the slip planes of a film and a substrate parallel to the interphase boundary (111). Experimental values h _c that agree with calculated values are determined for the Ge/Si(111) and Si₃N₄/Ge(111) heterosystems. The two-level epitaxial growth of Ge on Si is attained in the regime of combining the step-layer and 2D island growth mechanisms.