Preferential growth of Si films on 6H-SiC(0 0 0 1) C-face

Si/SiC heterojunctions are successfully prepared on 6H-SiC(0 0 0 1) C-face by low-pressure chemical vapor deposition. X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy are used to investigate the growth orientation and the surface morphology of the Si films. The results indicate that preferential growth orientation of 〈1 1 1〉 can be achieved in a temperature range of 825–1000 °C. Within the temperature range, grain size of the Si films becomes larger as temperature increases. Molecular dynamics calculation results indicate that the interface formation energy of the Si(1 1 1)/6H-SiC(0 0 0 1) C-face is smaller than that of Si(1 1 0)/6H-SiC(0 0 0 1) C-face. This is the reason why the Si films prefer to grow on the (1 1 1) crystal plane.