50 μm-Thick 100 mm 4H-SiC Epitaxial Layer Growth by Warm-Wall Planetary Reactor

Homo-epitaxial growth of 50 μm-thick 4H-SiC on 4° off-axis 100 mm substrates have been demostrated by using a commercial warm-wall multi-wafer planetary reactor (Aixtron 2800 G4). With optimized process, epitaxial layer with an average thickness of 48.146 μm and doping level of 8.39×1014/cm3 are obtained. The thickness uniformity with an edge exclusion of 5 mm are 1.30% (σ/mean) and 2.17% (max-min/max+min), and the doping level uniformity are 4.66% (σ/mean) and 6.95% (max-min/max+min), respectively. Surface roughness of the as-grown 50 μm-thick epitaxial layer has an RMS value of 0.606 nm with one step bunching on the 20×20 μm2 areas. This initial effort on thick 4H-SiC homoepitaxial growth indicates that this comercial multi-wafer planetary reactor has the potential for mass production of SiC epiwafers for 5000 V and above power devices.