Characterization of a stoichiometric SiC film deposited on a thermally oxidized Si substrate

Though SiC occurred decomposition during electron beam direct evaporation, the stoichiometric and void-free SiC thin film was still grown on thermally oxidized Si substrate through optimizing electron beam-physical vapor deposition (EB-PVD) technology. The image of atomic force microscopy (AFM) shows that the film is dense, homogeneous and void-free. The result of Micro-Raman spectroscopy and Fourier transformed infra-red (FTIR) spectroscopy shows that the film is mainly composed of SiC and a little C. Moreover, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) depth profile analysis was also carried out to investigate the distribution of component across the cross-section of thin film, and the result shows that SiC is stoichiometric.