Increased Growth Rate in a SiC CVD Reactor Using HCl as a Growth Additive

Hydrogen chloride (HCl) was added to a standard SiC epitaxial growth process as an additive gas. A low-pressure, hot-wall CVD reactor, using silane and propane precursors and a hydrogen carrier gas, was used for these experiments. It is proposed that the addition of HCl suppresses Si cluster formation in the gas phase, and possibly also preferentially etches material of low crystalline quality. The exact mechanism of the growth using an HCl additive is still under investigation, however, higher growth rates could be obtained and the surfaces were improved when HCl was added to the flow. The film morphology was studied using SEM and AFM and the quality with LTPL analysis, which are reported.