The development of the process for low-temperature surface carbonization of Si(111) substrate and the subsequent growth of 3C-SiC epitaxial buffer layer

Si(111) was successfully converted to SiC(111) using two sequential processes: surface carbonization and SiC buffer layer growth in a UHV-CVD cluster system equipped with in-situ XPS and RHEED. First, an atomically flat carbonized surface containing ca. 1.5 monolayers of SiC(111) was achieved by gradually decreasing the exposure of C
2
H
2
from 6 ×
^10-5
torr to zero at 700K within 15 min. Next, using methyltrichlorosilane as a single molecular precursor, we successfully extended the original high-quality SiC buffer layer to 3 nm at a dose of 1 ×
^10-4
torr and a higher temperature of 975 K for 10 min.