Kinetics of chemical vapor deposition of SiC from methyltrichlorosilane and hydrogen

In this study, the dependence of the deposition rate on processing parameters, such as temperature, and partial pressure is studied by chemical vapor deposition from mixture of methyltrichlorosilane (CH₃SiCl₃, MTS) and hydrogen. The kinetics investigation is carried out in a tubular, hot-wall reactor coupled to a sensitive magnetic suspension microbalance. The results show that the active energy limited by surface reactions is 188 kJ/mol. In the case, the deposition rate is linear to the partial pressure of MTS and the square of partial pressure of hydrogen. SiCl₂ and CH₃ are proposed as the effective precursor for SiC. A reaction model was proposed concluding gas phase reactions and surface reactions. The theoretical relation between deposition rate and partial pressures of MTS and H₂ was in a good accordance with experimental results.