No CrossRef data available.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2011
The temperature dependence of unstable stacking fault free energies on glide and shuffle {111} planes in silicon is investigated using a finite temperature molecular dynamics approach which includes a full treatment of anharmonic vibrational effects. The results are compared to earlier zero temperature ab initio calculations in which finite temperature effects were estimated using a harmonic approximation to transition state theory (TST). The unstable stacking free energies are interpreted within the framework of Rice‘s dislocation nucleation criterium to characterize a possible change from shuffle to glide plane dominance in the context of dislocation nucleation processes at a sharp crack tip. Such a change may be related to the abrupt brittle-ductile transition observed in silicon.