Low-temperature 3C-SiC heteroepitaxial film growth on Si by reactive-ion-beam deposition

Heteroepitaxial growth of 3C-SiC on Si(111) and Si (100) at temperatures lower than 800 °C was investigated by using a low-temperature crystalline film formation method, reactive-ion-beam deposition. This method uses low-energy ionized species extracted from reactive electron-cyclotron-resonance plasma of SiH4 and C2H4. In the case of direct film growth on clean Si substrates, 3C-SiC film growth can be achieved at the low temperature of 770 °C±12° by adjusting the ion energy to 200 eV. To improve crystalline quality, Si homoepitaxial and Si-C transition layers, about 2–3 and 3–4 nm in thickness, respectively, were formed in the initial heteroepitaxial growth stage. Using these thin layers, 200-nm-thick 3C-SiC/Si(111) heteroepitaxial films with about 63 cm2 /V s (300 K) and about 21 cm2 /V s (700 K) in Hall mobility can be obtained at the same low temperature, although they included twins.