Surface Structuring of Patterned 4H-SiC Surfaces Using a SiC/Si/SiC Sandwich Approach

• DOI: 10.4028/p-auz0oi
• Publication Date: 2024-09-02T20:06:47Z
• Authors: Yann Jousseaume; Piyush Kumar; Marianne Etzelmül...; François Cauwet; Ulrike Grossner; Gabriel Ferro
• Keywords: Condensed Matter - Materials Science; Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci); FOS: Physical sciences; Physics - Applied Physics; Applied Physics (physics.app-ph)

Mesa- and trench-patterned surfaces of 4H-SiC(0001) 4°off wafers were structured in macrosteps using Si melting in a SiC-Si-SiC sandwich configuration. Si spreading difficulties were observed in the case of trench-patterned samples while the attempts on mesa-patterned ones were more successful. In the latter case, parallel macrosteps were formed on both the dry-etched and unetched areas though these macrosteps rarely cross the patterns edges. The proposed mechanism involved preferential etching at Si-C bilayer step edges and fast lateral propagation along the [1120] direction.