Crystal Growth of Epitaxial 3C-SiC Thin Film on Si Substrate by Chemical Vapor Deposition using Single Precursor of Vinylsilane
Authors: Takuma Doi , Hashimoto Kentaro , Takeuchi Wakana , Nakatsuka Osamu 
Published: December 2020

Cubic silicon carbide (3C-SiC) has attracted much attention since it has a wide bandgap, high dielectric breakdown strength, and high thermal stability. 3C-SiC promises various electronic applications such as power devices and MEMS. Also, 3C-SiC has an advantage for a lower cost among many SiC polytypes, as it can grow epitaxially on Si substrate. Generally, two types of precursor source materials, including Si and C, are necessary to grow 3C-SiC thin films for chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method. In addition, complex processes including carbonization with a temperature as high as about 1200 °C are required for conventional epitaxial growth of 3C-SiC [1]. We focus on vinylsilane as a single precursor material for SiC growth. The Si-C bond in vinylsilane is relatively stable due to the relationship of intramolecular bond energy, that is appreciable for SiC growth. The growth of SiC crystals using vinylsilane can be achieved at a low temperature of 1000 ºC or less and the deposition process will be simplified. Recently, we have achieved the formation of polycrystalline SiC thin films on metal substrate using CVD method only with vinylsilane [2]. In this study, we examine the epitaxial growth of 3C-SiC and also report phosphorous (P) doping for SiC thin films grown on Si substrate.
SiC thin films were deposited on Si(001) and Si(111) substrates using CVD method with a vinylsilane precursor (manufactured by Japan Advanced Chemicals Co., Ltd.). The substrate temperature of the growth was ranging from 900 to 1000 °C, the growth pressure was 17 kPa, and the growth time was 60 min.
The surface morphology of deposited film was observed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). We can confirm that the uniform morphology of SiC film was formed on the Si substrate for a sample prepared with Si(111) substrate at 1000 ºC and also that there are no voids or defects at the interface.
We also examined X-ray diffraction measurements to characterize the crystalline structure. Out-of-plane XRD measurement (2θ/ω method) shows a sufficiently large diffraction peak related to 3C-SiC(111) for the Si(111) sample prepared at 1000 ºC, which means the growth of a well (111)-oriented 3C-SiC thin film on Si(111) substrate. On the other hand, in the case of the grazing angle XRD measurement (2θ method) for the SiC/Si(001) samples prepared at both 900 and 1000 ºC, we observed many diffraction peaks meaning the formation of polycrystalline 3C-SiC. The analysis of peak intensity and full width at half maximum value (FWHM) revealed that the crystallinity of SiC film improved with increasing the growth temperature. Raman scattering spectroscopy measurement also revealed that the dominant bonding structure in the film is Si-C and not C-Hn or C-C for samples prepared at higher than 900 ºC, that means the formation of a high crystalline quality SiC thin film.
In our presentation, we will discuss pros and cons of epitaxial growth of SiC films on Si(111) substrates and also reports P-doping into the SiC films will be discussed.

References

[1] Z. Zhao, Y. Li, Z. Yin, and Z. Li, J. Mater. Sci: Mater. Electron. 27, 7095 (2016).
[2] T. Doi, W. Takeuchi, Y. Jin, H. Kokubun, S. Yasuhara, O. Nakatsuka, and S. Zaima, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 57, 01AE08 (2018).