Basal plane dislocation-free epitaxy of silicon carbide

Molten KOH etching was implemented on SiC substrates before growing epilayers on them. It was found that the creation of basal plane dislocation (BPD) etch pits on the substrates can greatly enhance the conversion of BPDs to threading edge dislocations during epitaxy, and thus low BPD density and BPD-free SiC epilayers are obtained by this method. The reason why BPD etch pits can promote the earlier conversion is discussed. The SiC epilayer growth by this method is very promising in overcoming forward voltage drop degradation of SiC PiN diodes.