Growth of cubic silicon carbide on silicon using Hot Filament CVD

In this paper, we report, for the first time, growth of high-quality single-crystalline 3C-SiC on silicon substrates using Hot Filament Chemical Vapor Deposition (HF-CVD). Rocking curve X-Ray diffraction (XRD) measurements revealed a full-width at half maximum (FWHM) as low as 333 arcsec for a 15 μm thick layer. Low tensile strain, below 0.1%, was measured using Raman spectroscopy. This quality was achieved with a carefully optimized process making use of the additional degrees of freedom the hot filaments create. For example, the hot filaments allow for precursor pre-cracking. Additionally, they allow a tuning of the vertical thermal gradient which creates an improved thermal field compared to classic Chemical Vapor Deposition techniques used for the deposition of this material today.