Metastablity of the undissociated state of dissociated dislocations

Undissociated, metastable dislocations have been observed in various crystals in addition to stable dissociated dislocations by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. The origin of the metastablity of the undissociated state has been discussed specifically for the dissociation into Shockley partial dislocations in fcc or hcp lattice. It is shown that the metastability is due either to a high Peierls-Nabarro stress larger than a few percent of the shear modulus of the partial dislocations and/or to the increase of the total core energy by an increase of the dangling bonds. The metastablity of undissociated dislocations in zincblende III-V compounds is concluded to be due to a contribution of the latter effect.