On the mobility of dislocations in semiconductor crystals

The literature data on dissociation widths in elemental semiconductors (Si and Ge) deformed under high-stress conditions are re-examined in the frame of a model which considers that moving dislocations are subjected to a periodic Peierls potential. It is concluded that the experimental results can be interpreted in a consistent way by considering that the mobility of a Shockley partial dislocation depends only on its core structure and not on its leading/trailing position.