Dislocation motion in silicon: the shuffle-glide controversy revisited

Considering recently computed formation and migration energies of kinks on nondissociated dislocations, we have compared the relative mobilities of glide partial and shuffle perfect dislocations in silicon. We found that the latter should be more mobile over all the available stress range, invalidating the model of a stress driven transition between shuffle and glide dislocations. We discuss several hypotheses that may explain the experimental observations.