Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 February 2011
Low-temperature homoepitaxial growth of 4H-SiC using halo-carbon precursors was further investigated to address the problems limiting increase of the growth rate of the defect-free epilayers at growth temperatures below 1300°C. Enhanced etching of Si clusters in the gas phase was achieved by adding HCl during the low-temperature growth. The effective Si/C ratio above the growth surface was increased as a result of reduced depletion of silicon vapor species by cluster condensation, which resulted in drastically improved epilayer morphology and significant increase of the growth rate. An intentional insitu nitrogen doping of epitaxial layers during 1300°C growth on Si and C faces revealed more than an order of magnitude higher nitrogen donor incorporation in the C-face epitaxial layers. Finally, a feasibility of selective epitaxial growth using low-temperature masking materials such as SiO2 was demonstrated.