Directional Anisotropy in the Cleavage Fracture of Silicon
Abstract
Total-energy pseudopotential calculations are used to study the cleavage anisotropy in silicon. It is shown that cracks propagate easily on \{111\} and \{110\} planes provided crack propagation proceeds in the <1¯10> direction. In contrast, if the crack is driven in a <001> direction on a \{110\} plane the bond breaking process is discontinuous and associated with pronounced relaxations of the surrounding atoms, which results in a large lattice trapping. The different lattice trapping for different crack propagation directions can explain the experimentally observed cleavage anisotropy in silicon single crystals.
- Publication:
-
Physical Review Letters
- Pub Date:
- June 2000
- DOI:
- 10.1103/PhysRevLett.84.5347
- Bibcode:
- 2000PhRvL..84.5347P