In Situ Observation of Polytype Switches during SiC PVT Bulk Growth by High Energy X-Ray Diffraction

This work reports on the in-situ observation of a polytype switch during physical vapor transport (PVT) growth of bulk SiC crystals by x-ray diffraction. A standard PVT reactor for 2” and 3” bulk growth was set up in a high-energy x-ray diffraction lab. Due to the high penetration depth of the high-energy x-ray beam no modification of the PVT reactor was necessary in order to measure Laue diffraction patterns of the growing crystal with good signal to noise ratio. We report for the first time upon the in-situ observation of polytype switching during SiC bulk PVT growth.