James Kermode, Richard Beanland, Tom Hudson

If a dislocation is present in the active volume of a light emitting device, it causes failure by acting as a carrier recombination pathway and grows through the material by emitting atoms, eventually quenching all luminescence. Despite the significant technological progress improved knowledge would generate, the atomistic mechanisms underlying this recombination-enhanced mechanism of dislocation climb and its interaction with vacancies and interstitials are poorly understood, with no first principles work reported to date. This PhD project will address this deficiency for the first time.