Investigation of growth conditions for epitaxial growth of SiC on Si in the solid-source molecular beam epitaxy

Thin crystalline SiC films were grown on Si(111) using solid state evaporation at substrate temperatures between 780 and 900 °C. The growth rates were in the range between 30 and 120 nm h−1. The films were characterized by in situ reflection high-energy electron diffraction (RHEED) and ex situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), infrared (IR) spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The films grown at high temperatures and low growth rates were found to be epitaxial. They mostly consist of twinned-cubic structure, but with increasing layer thickness hexagonal stacking sequences often were found. In the orientation distribution function full width at half maximum (FWHM) values of down to 1° were measured.