Very High Growth Rate of 4H-SiC Using MTS as Chloride-Based Precursor

The chlorinated precursor methyltrichlorosilane (MTS), CH3SiCl3, has been used to grow epitaxial layers of 4H-SiC in a hot wall CVD reactor, with growth rates as high as 170 µm/h at 1600°C. Since MTS contains both silicon and carbon, with the C/Si ratio 1, MTS was used both as single precursor and mixed with silane or ethylene to study the effect of the C/Si and Cl/Si ratios on growth rate and doping of the epitaxial layers. When using only MTS as precursor, the growth rate showed a linear dependence on the MTS molar fraction in the reactor up to about 100 µm/h. The growth rate dropped for C/Si < 1 but was constant for C/Si > 1. Further, the growth rate decreased with lower Cl/Si ratio.