Movement of Dislocations in Quartz.

摘要

Dislocations in quartz crystals have been known to cause problems in the fabrication of resonators by the formation of etch channels. The etch channels are known to weaken the physical strength of quartz blanks and to reduce the yield in photolithographic production processes. While it is possible to reduce the etch channel density in quartz by post growth electro-diffusion, this does not reduce the dislocation density. It is suspected that dislocations contribute to acceleration sensitivity, thermal hysteresis, and possibly aging. The behavior of dislocations in quartz is also of interest to the fields of geophysics, seismology, and plate tectonics because it affects the underground movement of rock. Specifically, the movement of dislocations in quartz is the mechanism through which quartz can be plastically deformed. A large body of literature on the movement of dislocations in natural and cultured quartz has been published in various geophysical journals over the past thirty years. This paper is a review of this literature and its possible implications for frequency control.