Homo-epitaxial growth of 3C-SiC(100) thin films on SiC/Si substrate treated by chemical mechanical polishing

Homo-epitaxial 3C-SiC thin films were grown on SiC/Si substrates by thermal cracking of tetramethylsilane (TMS) in a radio-frequency inductive chemical-vapor deposition (RF-CVD) reactor. The 3C-SiC thin films were first hetero-epitaxially grown on Si(100) substrate and then the SiC surface was flattened using a chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) technique. 3C-SiC films were again homo-epitaxially grown on the flattened surfaces of the SiC/Si substrates at various growth temperatures (1180 - 1280 .deg. C), reactor pressures (4 - 400 Torr), and source gas flow rates (1 - 3 sccm). The CMP process was employed to reduce the surface roughness of and the defects in the hetero-epitaxially grown SiC films. The homo-epitaxially grown SiC thin films were single-crystalline 3C-SiC(100). The growth rate of the films increased with increasing growth temperature, reactor pressure, and TMS flow rate. However, the crystallinity of the homo-epitaxial SiC films deteriorated with increasing reactor pressure and source-gas flow rate.