Pulsed laser deposition of crystalline silicon carbide films

Silicon carbide films were deposited on top of silicon substrates maintained at various temperatures using the technique of Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) employing an excimer or a ruby laser. We found the deposited films to be crystalline for substrate temperature of only 500 °C for XeCl deposition and 700 °C for ruby. Films deposited at room temperature are amorphous and, as in the case of amorphous films obtained by high fluence ion implantation, require an annealing at a temperature as high as 1000 °C to crystallise. We demonstrated, by means of ablation rate measurements, that the kinetic energy of the atoms ejected from the laser irradiated target plays a crucial role in the observed lowering of crystallisation temperature.