Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 282 (2005) 120–123 www.elsevier.com/locate/jcis Numerical simulation of the anisotropic elastic field generated by a misfit dislocations along a NiSi 2 /Si/(001)GaAs heterotwin interface Mourad Brioua ∗ , Rachid Benbouta, Salah Madani, Lahbib Adami Département de mécanique, Faculté des Sciences de l’Ingénieur, Université de Batna, Rue Chahid Boukhlouf Med ElHadi, C.P. 05000, Batna, Algeria Received 18 May 2004; accepted 16 August 2004 Available online 5 November 2004 Abstract The purpose of this work is the numerical resolution, in the case of anisotropic elasticity, of the problem of a misfit dislocation located between an infinite substrate and two-layer composite. This case is obtained where the period of a network of misfit dislocations is taken as much greater than the thickness of the two foils. As a result, in the vicinity of the dislocation, the limiting boundary conditions will be close to those of Volterra translation dislocation. The elastic fields of displacement and stress are calculated for various orientations of the burger’s vector, by inversion of a 30 × 30 computed matrix. Before this calculation, we tested the precision of the results of the program by comparing the interfacial relative displacement obtained from it with the results of the analytical expression describing this same displacement. The composite NiSi 2 /Si/(001)GaAs the subject of several investigations, is treated as an example.  2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Dislocation; Misfit; Interface; Networks 1. Introduction Misfit dislocations (MDs) are very important subjects of investigation in the physics and technology of thin film het- eroepitaxial systems. Often the MDs determine the physical, mechanical, and functional properties of semiconductor de- vices [1]. Efficient theorical methods have been developed to study misfit dislocations. The image dislocation method yields so- lutions satisfying only part of the boundary conditions. The common method of replacement of the three-dimensional problem by the superposition of particular two-dimensional problems [2], the method of interface virtual dislocations (MSVD), and the method of harmonic function [3–5] (Bon- net method) after alternatives. When an interfacial dislocation is parallel and near to the free surfaces of a thin crystal, its field of displacements and stresses will necessarily depend on the distance between the * Corresponding author. Fax: +213-3381-2143. E-mail address: brio_ray@hotmail.com (M. Brioua). dislocation and these free surfaces. In the case of anisotropic elasticity the problem becomes more difficult, especially when the crystal is constituted of three plates of different nature (hetero structure). Bonnet [6] proposed a method to solve this problem and obtain the field of stresses. The aim of our work is to solve this same problem nu- merically in the case of anisotropic elasticity. The crystal NiSi 2 /Si/GaAs, the subject of several investigations [7–9], is treated as an example. 1.1. Formulation of the problem Fig. 1 presents in detail the geometry of the problem of a network of misfit dislocations parallel to the axis Ox 3 of a Cartesian frame Ox 1 x 2 x 3 with a period 1/g in the plane of an interface separating two different anisotropic media (+) and (−). For the limiting case corresponding to 1/g ≫ h ∗ , the problem reduces to a single straight interfacial defect. In this analysis, most of the notations and conversions used in the previous papers [10] are adopted. It was shown that the displacement field that results from the strain is pe- 0021-9797/$ – see front matter  2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2004.08.160