Growth mechanism of α-SiC hetero-epitaxial films by PLD as studied on the laser photon, pulse-width and substrates dependence

Abstract Hetero-epitaxial films of α-SiC (high-temperature type) were successfully fabricated by pulsed laser ablation-deposition (PLD) at much lower temperatures than the transition temperature (Tc∼1600 °C) from β-SiC. Since the preparation of the epitaxial films which may be used instead of single-crystal wafers is a very important subject in SiC device technology, we have studied on the laser photon and pulse-width dependence using nanosecond and picosecond Nd:YAG lasers in addition to the temperature and substrate dependence. It is necessary for epitaxial growth of SiC to use a suitable (not so high) fluence, photon energy and pulse width in addition to heater temperature of 1200–1300 °C and symmetry (C6) matching between substrates and SiC. Otherwise, the lasers decompose the target to so small clusters and ions that they can not recombine and reconstruct SiC crystalline lattices.