Growth and characterization of 4H-SiC by horizontal hot-wall CVD

4H-SiC layers have been homoepitaxially grown at 1500°C with the use of a horizontal hot-wall chemical vapor deposition (CVD) system, which was built in the author´s group. The typical growth rate was 2 μm/h at a pressure of 40 Torr. The background donor concentration has been reduced to 2.3×10 cm^-3 during a prolonged growth run. It confirmed the idea that the high background concentration of thin films was caused by the impurities inside the susceptor and thermal insulator. The FWHM of X-ray ω-rocking curves show 9-15 arcsecs in five different areas of a 32 μm-thick 4H-SiC epilayer. The free exciton peaks dominated in the near-band-edge low-temperature photoluminescence spectrum (LTPL), indicating high crystal quality.