Multi-Scale Analysis and Elementary Reaction Simulation of SiC-CVD Using CH₃SiCl₃/H₂

Abstract

Silicon carbide (SiC) films were prepared from methyltrichlorosilane (MTS) and H2 at temperatures ranging from 900 to 1000°C by low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Multi-scale analysis was performed on the SiC film growth rate using a growth rate profile for a tubular reactor that was 300 mm long from the inlet to the outlet and a step coverage (SC) profile for micron-sized trenches. The precursor consumption ratio was estimated using a quadrupole mass spectrometer (QMS). These systematic analyses revealed that MTS was not the direct growth species for SiC deposition. We concluded that there were two major growth species controlling the SiC deposition rate. The partial pressures of these species were estimated by SC and growth rate analyses. An elementary reaction simulation was performed to predict the SiC film growth species. A comparison between the elementary reaction simulation results and the multi-scale analysis suggested several chemical species as candidates for the direct growth species. The candidates for the first species, with a low sticking probability of around 10−3, were CH4, C2H4, and C2H2, and candidates for the second species, with a high sticking probability of around 10−1, were CH3, C2H3, and C2H5.

Surface Kinetic Mechanisms of Epitaxial Chemical Vapour Deposition of 4H Silicon Carbide Growth by Methyltrichlorosilane-H2 Gaseous System

“…In this model, the gas residence time is around 0.05 s, and is far smaller than the estimated thermal equilibrium time, beyond 1 s, reported in Refs. [ 43 , 51 ].…”

Numerical Simulation of Gas Phase Reaction for Epitaxial Chemical Vapor Deposition of Silicon Carbide by Methyltrichlorosilane in Horizontal Hot-Wall Reactor

“…Normally in CVD process, the deposition on substrate surface is usually contributed by intermediates of gas phase reactions instead of precursors [23,25]. It seems when the substrate temperature is high and the total gas flow rate is low, the consumption rate of MTS will increase greatly.…”

“…Since researchers are interested in understanding and predicting the overall growth phenomena in CVD processes, calculations [7,12,17,18,20,24] of chemical kinetics coupling with heat and mass transfer and fluid dynamics were commonly used to investigate SiC growth process. Simulation models [12,17,18,23,25] with gas phase reactions of MTS-H 2 gaseous system were proposed by different researchers. However, thorough investigations focus on the effect of reactor temperature, MTS/H 2 ratio and total gas flow rate are still lacked.…”

High‐Aspect‐Ratio Parallel‐Plate Microchannels Applicable to Kinetic Analysis of Chemical Vapor Deposition

“…This may support the existence of a film‐forming species with a low η of ≤10 −4 , according to Figure c. The first work to determine η using 3D test structures was conducted by Fukushima et al; they used a microcavity method with low AR trenches, up to 11:1. They highlighted that two film‐forming species with different η contributed to film growth, although film‐forming species with η ≤ 10 −4 could not be accessed due to the inadequate AR of their trenches.…”

“…We describe details of the procedure in Section , and validate the quality of the microchannel formed by our method in Section . We then investigated the surface reaction kinetics of SiC‐CVD, which has multiple film‐forming species with low η , using our HAR microchannel (AR = 1000:1) as a demonstration in Section . The results obtained reveal a new reaction pathway with extremely low η around 10 −6 , which could not be detected in previous studies using shallow trenches (AR = 11:1) …”