New method for growing silicon carbide on silicon by solid-phase epitaxy: Model and experiment

A new method of solid-state epitaxy of silicon carbide (SiC) on silicon (Si) is proposed theoretically and realized experimentally. Films of various polytypes of SiC on Si(111) grow through a chemical reaction (at T = 1100–1400°C) between single-crystal silicon and gaseous carbon oxide CO (at p = 10–300 Pa). Some silicon atoms transform into gaseous silicon oxide SiO and escape from the system, which brings about the formation of vacancies and pores in the silicon near the interface between the silicon and the silicon carbide. These pores provide significant relaxation of the elastic stresses caused by the lattice misfit between Si and SiC. X-ray diffraction, electron diffraction, and electron microscopy studies and luminescence analysis showed that the silicon carbide layers are epitaxial, homogeneous over the thickness, and can contain various polytypes and a mixture of them, depending on the growth conditions. The typical pore size is 1 to 5 μm at film thicknesses of ～20 to 100 nm. Thermodynamic nucleation theory is generalized to the case where a chemical reaction occurs. Kinetic and thermodynamic theories of this growth mechanism are constructed, and the time dependences of the number of new-phase nuclei, the concentrations of chemical components, and the film thickness are calculated. A model is proposed for relaxation of elastic stresses in a film favored by vacancies and pores in the substrate.