Homoepitaxial Growth and Characterization of 4H-SiC Epilayers by Low-Pressure Hot-Wall Chemical Vapor Deposition

Horizontal air-cooled low-pressure hot-wall CVD (LP-HWCVD) system is developed to get highly qualitical 4H-SiC epilayers.Homoepitaxial growth of 4H-SiC on off-oriented Si-face (0001) 4H-SiC substrates is performed at 1500℃ with a pressure of 1.3×103Pa by using the step-controlled epitaxy.The growth rate is controlled to be about 1.0μm/h.The surface morphologies and structural and optical properties of 4H-SiC epilayers are characterized with Nomarski optical microscope,atomic force microscopy (AFM),X-ray diffraction,Raman scattering,and low temperature photoluminescence (LTPL).N-type 4H-SiC epilayers are obtained by in-situ doping of NH3 with the flow rate ranging from 0.1 to 3sccm.SiC p-n junctions are obtained on these epitaxial layers and their electrical and optical characteristics are presented.The obtained p-n junction diodes can be operated at the temperature up to 400℃,which provides a potential for high-temperature applications.