Reductions of twin and protrusion in 3C-SiC heteroepitaxial growth on Si(1Â 0Â 0)

A series of low-pressure chemical vapor deposition experiments and gas-surface chemical kinetic simulations have been carried out to achieve significant reductions of twin and protrusion in 3C-SiC heteroepitaxial growth on Si(1 0 0) substrates. A two-step epitaxial process, consisting of a nucleation stage and a subsequent epitaxial stage, was newly proposed by comparisons between experimental results and numerical predictions. The twin formation was successfully suppressed under the growth conditions of the nucleation stage leading to a relative flux ratio of C to Si larger than 56 on the deposition surface. The surface protrusion density was decreased from 7.5×106 to 6.5×104 cm−2 when the conventional carbonization process was replaced with the proposed nucleation stage.