Epitaxy and recrystallization kinetics of TaC thin films on SiC for high temperature processing of semiconductor devices

The authors report the epitaxial growth of cubic TaC thin films on 4H-SiC (0001) substrates by pulsed laser deposition and their recrystallization kinetics. The growth temperature for epitaxy was found to be 1000°C. The activation energy for the recrystallization was 1.5eV. High temperature annealing produced changes in the surface morphology which caused grain growth and created pinholes through a recrystallization process in the films deposited at lower temperatures. The films deposited at higher temperatures remained virtually unchanged. Implications of these results are discussed in the context of the development of future high temperature and high-power electronic devices.