Reduced critical thickness for relaxing heteroepitaxial films on compliant substrates

It is argued that heteroepitaxial thin films (layers) grown on a compliant substrate are not able to relax their strain elastically by large-area slip across a “weak” layer. Instead, the Matthews model of plastic relaxation is modified by supposing that the interfacial misfit dislocations relax their strain field or even disappear into the weak layer. Consequently, the moving film-threading dislocations experience a reduced drag force. Therefore, the critical film thickness is lowered, in contrast to the enhanced thickness predicted by current theories. A quantitative estimate is given which depends on the nature of the weak layer. Implications include a larger free slip path and potentially a lower density of film-threading dislocations.