Prospects for 3C-SiC bulk crystal growth

Abstract

Despite outstanding properties, the development of 3C-SiC electronics continues to suffer from the lack of good quality, bulk 3C-SiC substrates. Up to now, there is no real seed and/or optimized growth processes. In this work, we address these two different issues. A two-step approach is shown, which couples the advantage of vapour-liquid-solid hetero-epitaxial growth of 3C-SiC on a 6H-SiC substrate for the seed formation and the ones of the continuous feed physical vapour transport method for the growth of the bulk material at reasonably high rate. Using such an approach, we could combine the elimination of the twin boundaries which systematically form in the 3C/6H-SiC epitaxial system, with getting a growth rate of about 0.2 mm/h for the bulk material. An evaluation of results is done, with respect to the change in growth conditions.

Effect of initial substrate conditions on growth of cubic silicon carbide

“…The FWHM of the reference samples N 0 X line is ~1.3 meV. This is an indication that the crystal quality of these samples is in par with the reference 3C-SiC bulk like sample described in [27]. In general the phonon replica lines are well defined for both samples and the 3C-SiC layer grown on a buffer layer at the best place displays very low background which points in better crystalline quality.…”

Role of surface effects on silicon carbide polytype stability

“…Nevertheless, with a precise control of supersaturation 3C-SiC crystals can be obtained in the temperature range 1500-2000 1C (see Ref. [16] and references therein). The few studies dealing with the effect of polarity on nucleation and growth of 3C-SiC report a higher nucleation density on C face [17,18].…”

Nature of interfacial defects and their roles in strain relaxation at highly lattice mismatched 3C-SiC/Si (001) interface

“…1,2 The 3C-SiC film is an attractive material for high-power, high-frequency, high-temperature devices, and micro/ nanoelectromechanical system because of its excellent electrical, thermal, and mechanical properties. 3,4 Furthermore, it can be a substrate material for III-nitride semiconductors with the cubic structure.…”