Prospects for 3C-SiC bulk crystal growth

Didier Chaussende (1) , Frédéric J. Mercier (1) , Alexandre Boulle (2) , Florine Conchon (3) , Maher Soueidan (4) , Gabriel Ferro (4) , Alkioni Mantzari (5) , Ariadne Andreadou (5) , Efsthatios Polychroniadis (5) , Carole Balloud (6) , Sandrine Juillaguet (6) , Jean Camassel (6) , Michel Pons (7)

1 LMGP - Laboratoire des matériaux et du génie physique
2 Axe 3 : organisation structurale multiéchelle des matériaux
3 SPCTS - Science des Procédés Céramiques et de Traitements de Surface
4 LMI - Laboratoire des Multimatériaux et Interfaces
5 Department of Physics [Thessaloniki]
6 GES - Groupe d'étude des semiconducteurs
7 SIMaP - Science et Ingénierie des Matériaux et Procédés

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.

Mots clés: Growth from vapor; Seed crystals; Semiconducting silicon compounds

Domaines: Matériaux; Science des matériaux [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]

Didier Chaussende, Frédéric J. Mercier, Alexandre Boulle, Florine Conchon, Maher Soueidan, et al.. Prospects for 3C-SiC bulk crystal growth. Journal of Crystal Growth, 2008, 310, pp.976-981. ⟨10.1016/j.jcrysgro.2007.11.140⟩. ⟨hal-00174181⟩