Orientation, alignment, and polytype control in epitaxial growth of SiC nanowires for electronics application in harsh environments

Abstract

SiC nanowires (NWs) are attractive building blocks for the next generation electronic devices since silicon carbide is a wide bandgap semiconductor with high electrical breakdown strength, radiation resistance, mechanical strength, thermal conductivity, chemical stability and biocompatibility. Epitaxial growth using metal-catalyst-based vapor-liquid-solid mechanism was employed for SiC NW growth in this work. 4H-SiC substrates having different crystallographic orientations were used in order to control NW alignment and polytype. A new technique based on vapor-phase delivery of the metal catalyst was developed to facilitate control of the NW density. Both 4H and 3C polytypes with a strong stacking disorder were obtained. The 4H and 3C NWs had different orientations with respect to the substrate. 4H NWs grew perpendicular to the c-plane of the substrate. The stacking faults (SFs) in these nanowires were perpendicular to the [0001] nanowire axes. All 3C NWs grew at 20° with respect to the substrate c-plane, and their projections on the c-plane corresponded to one of the six equivalent ⟨101-0⟩ crystallographic directions. All six orientations were obtained simultaneously when growing NWs on the (0001) substrate surface, while only one or two NW orientations were observed when growing NWs on any particular crystallographic plane parallel to the c-axis of the substrate. Growth on {101-0} surfaces resulted in only one NW orientation, thereby producing well-aligned NW arrays. Preliminary measurements of the NW electrical conductivity are reported utilizing two-terminal device geometry.