SiC growth modification and stress reduction in FLASiC assisted liquid phase epitaxy

The defect density of the epitaxial SiC layers on Si result from the high defect density in the seeding layer formed by carbonization of the Si substrate. A method to reduce the defect density is flash lamp annealing. The recrystallisation can be improved if a three layers stack consisting of 3C-SiC/Si/3C-SiC/Si-substrate is used (iFLASiC-process). To improve the recrystallization C, Ge or both elements were added to Si. Ge and C additions to the Si and subsequent FLASiC processing l ead t o a s ubstantial increase o f t he m ass t ransfer. T he g rowth r ate r eached 1 0.0 μm/s. T he a chieved thickening of the lower layer strongly depends on the Si composition and is caused by the modification of the optical properties and the mass transport properties of the Si. Ge incorporation into Si and therefore into the Si melt enhance the mass transport from the upper SiC layer to the lower one. C incorporation into Si increases the available C contributing to SiC growth. Both elements lower the Si band gap increasing light absorption. Beside the growth modification the in plane strain in the 3C-SiC layer turns from tensile strain with a value of 0.0004 in the non buckling case to an in plane compressive strain with a strain value of - 0.0046. Non annealed layers of comparable thickness deposited under the same conditions exhibit tensile residual strain in the range of 0.002 to 0.006. FLASiC is not only able to improve the layer quality but also reduces the residual stress.