Heteroepitaxial Growth of 3C-SiC Thin Films on Si (100) Substrates by Single Source Chenical Vapor Deposition for MEMS Applications

In this paper, we describe the heteroepitaxial growth of single-crystal 3C-SiC (cubic silicon carbide) thin films on Si (100) wafers by atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition (APCVD) at 1350degC for MEMS applications, in which hexamethyildisilane (HMDS, Si₂(CH₃)₆) was used as a safe organosilane source. The HMDS flow rate was 0.5 seem and the H₂ carrier gas flow rate was 2.5 slm. The HMDS flow rate was important in obtaining mirror like crystalline surface. The growth rate of 3C-SiC film in this work was 4.3 mum/h. The 3C-SiC epitaxial film grown on the Si (100) substrate was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Raman scattering, respectively. These results show that the main chemical components of grown 3C-SiC films have formation of single-crystal 3C-SiC, the films have a very good crystal quality without twins, defects and dislocations and very low residual stress.