Materials Science Forum, Vol.433-4, 217-220, 2002
Growth of SiC hetero-epitaxial films by pulsed-laser deposition - Laser frequency dependence
Influence of laser frequency (f) on the quality of SiC epitaxial films fabricated using pulsed-laser deposition method is investigated by x-ray diffraction, reflection high-energy electron diffraction (RHEED), and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. It was found that polytype of the prepared SiC films changed from P-phase to a-phase when f was increased from 1 HZ to 2 Hz. The crystallinity of the alpha-SiC films is improved with increasing f. However, RHEED images show a pattern of 3 x 3 surface reconstruction in addition to a strong streak pattern due to epitaxial SiC for films fabricated with higher laser frequency than 5 Hz, which suggests that Si layer precipitates on the SiC films. These results indicate that the laser frequency is one of the essential parameters to fabricate high quality SiC films.