EBSD characterization of the growth mechanism of SiC synthesized via direct microwave heating

Abstract Well-crystallized 3C-silicon carbide (SiC) grains/nanowires have been synthesized rapidly and conveniently via direct microwave heating, simply using silicon dioxide powders and artificial graphite as raw materials. The comprehensive characterizations have been employed to investigate the micro-structure of the obtained 3C-SiC products. Results indicated that, different from the classic screw dislocation growth mechanism, the 3C-SiC grains/nanowires synthesized via high-energy vacuum microwave irradiation were achieved through the two-dimension nucleation and laminar growth mechanism. Especially, the electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) was employed to characterize the crystal planes of the as-grown SiC products. The calculated Euler angles suggested that the fastest-growing crystal planes {211} were overlapped gradually. Through the formation of the {421} transformation plane, {211} finally evolved to {220} which existed as the side face of SiC grains. The most stable crystal planes {111} became the regular hexagonal planes in the end, which could be explained by the Bravais rule. The characterization results of EBSD provided important experimental information for the evolution of crystal planes.