Behaviour of the 3C–SiC(100) c(2 × 2) (C‐terminated) and 3 × 2 (Si‐rich) surface reconstructions upon initial H₂/CH₄ microwave plasma exposures

Abstract We present a comparative study of C‐terminated and Si‐rich 3C–SiC(100) surfaces exposed to a H₂/CH₄ microwave plasma used in diamond growth. Each surface is characterized before and after short plasma exposures using LEED, XPS and STM techniques. In both cases, a 5 minutes plasma exposure led to a 1 × 1 LEED pattern associated with a slight oxygen contamination as evidenced by XPS. However, upon additional annealings, the two surfaces exhibit very different behaviors. For the Si‐terminated 3 × 2 surface, a 1 × 1 → 2 × 1 transition occurring at 1173 K is observed while the initial c(2 × 2) surface reconstruction is restored at 1323 K for the C‐terminated surface. Furthermore, the XPS measurements show a correlation between oxygen surface release and LEED transitions. An atomic arrangement is observed by STM for the C‐terminated surface (© 2005 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)