SILICON CARBIDE - MATERIALS, PROCESSING AND APPLICATIONS IN ELECTRONIC DEVICES Edited by Moumita Mukherjee Silicon Carbide - Materials, Processing and Applications in Electronic Devices Edited by Moumita Mukherjee Published by InTech Janeza Trdine 9, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia Copyright © 2011 InTech All chapters are Open Access articles distributed under the Creative Commons Non Commercial Share Alike Attribution 3.0 license, which permits to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt the work in any medium, so long as the original work is properly cited. After this work has been published by InTech, authors have the right to republish it, in whole or part, in any publication of which they are the author, and to make other personal use of the work. Any republication, referencing or personal use of the work must explicitly identify the original source. 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Used under license from Shutterstock.com First published September, 2011 Printed in Croatia A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com Additional hard copies can be obtained from orders@intechweb.org Silicon Carbide - Materials, Processing and Applications in Electronic Devices, Edited by Moumita Mukherjee p. cm. 978-953-307-968-4 free online editions of InTech Books and Journals can be found at www.intechopen.com Contents Preface IX Part 1 Silicon Carbide: Theory, Crystal Growth, Defects, Characterization, Surface and Interface Properties 1 Chapter 1 Mechanical Properties of Amorphous Silicon Carbide 3 Kun Xue, Li-Sha Niu and Hui-Ji Shi Chapter 2 SiC Cage Like Based Materials 23 Patrice Mélinon Chapter 3 Metastable Solvent Epitaxy of SiC, the Other Diamond Synthetics 53 Shigeto R. Nishitani, Kensuke Togase, Yosuke Yamamoto, Hiroyasu Fujiwara and Tadaaki Kaneko Chapter 4 The Formation of Silicon Carbide in the SiC x Layers (x = 0.03–1.4) Formed by Multiple Implantation of C Ions in Si 69 Kair Kh. Nussupov and Nurzhan B. Beisenkhanov Chapter 5 SiC as Base of Composite Materials for Thermal Management 115 J.M. Molina Chapter 6 Bulk Growth and Characterization of SiC Single Crystal 141 Lina Ning and Xiaobo Hu Chapter 7 SiC, from Amorphous to Nanosized Materials, the Exemple of SiC Fibres Issued of Polymer Precursors 161 Philippe Colomban Chapter 8 Micropipe Reactions in Bulk SiC Growth 187 M. Yu. Gutkin, T. S. Argunova, V. G. Kohn, A. G. Sheinerman and J. H. Je VI Contents Chapter 9 Thermal Oxidation of Silicon Carbide (SiC) – Experimentally Observed Facts 207 Sanjeev Kumar Gupta and Jamil Akhtar Chapter 10 Creation of Ordered Layers on Semiconductor Surfaces: An ab Initio Molecular Dynamics Study of the SiC(001)-3×2 and SiC(100)-c(2×2) Surfaces 231 Yanli Zhang and Mark E. Tuckerman Chapter 11 Optical Properties and Applications of Silicon Carbide in Astrophysics 257 Karly M. Pitman, Angela K. Speck, Anne M. Hofmeister and Adrian B. Corman Chapter 12 Introducing Ohmic Contacts into Silicon Carbide Technology 283 Zhongchang Wang, Susumu Tsukimoto, Mitsuhiro Saito and Yuichi Ikuhara Chapter 13 SiC-Based Composites Sintered with High Pressure Method 309 Piotr Klimczyk Part 2 Silicon Carbide: Electronic Devices and Applications 335 Chapter 14 SiC Devices on Different Polytypes: Prospects and Challenges 337 Moumita Mukherjee Chapter 15 Recent Developments on Silicon Carbide Thin Films for Piezoresistive Sensors Applications 369 Mariana Amorim Fraga, Rodrigo Sávio Pessoa, Homero Santiago Maciel and Marcos Massi Chapter 16 Opto-Electronic Study of SiC Polytypes: Simulation with Semi-Empirical Tight-Binding Approach 389 Amel Laref and Slimane Laref Chapter 17 Dielectrics for High Temperature SiC Device Insulation: Review of New Polymeric and Ceramic Materials 409 Sombel Diaham, Marie-Laure Locatelli and Zarel Valdez-Nava Chapter 18 Application of Silicon Carbide in Abrasive Water Jet Machining 431 Ahsan Ali Khan and Mohammad Yeakub Ali Contents VII Chapter 19 Silicon Carbide Filled Polymer Composite for Erosive Environment Application: A Comparative Analysis of Experimental and FE Simulation Results 453 Sandhyarani Biswas, Amar Patnaik and Pradeep Kumar Chapter 20 Comparative Assessment of Si Schottky Diode Family in DC-DC Converter 469 Nor Zaihar Yahaya Chapter 21 Compilation on Synthesis, Characterization and Properties of Silicon and Boron Carbonitride Films 487 P. Hoffmann, N. Fainer, M. Kosinova, O. Baake and W. Ensinger Preface Silicon Carbide (SiC) and its polytypes have been a part of human civilization for a long time; the technical interest of this hard and stable compound has been realized in 1885 and 1892 by Cowless and Acheson for grinding and cutting purpose, leading to its manufacture on a large scale. The fundamental physical limitations of Si operation at higher temperature and power are the strongest motivations for switching to wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductors such as SiC for these applications. The high output power density of WBG transistors allows the fabrication of smaller size devices with the same output power. Higher impedance, due to the smaller size, allows easier and lower loss matching in amplifiers. The operation at high voltage, due to its high breakdown electric field, not only reduces the need for voltage conversion, but also provides the potential to obtain high efficiency, which is a critical parameter for amplifiers. The wide bandgap enables it to operate at elevated temperatures. These attractive features in power amplifier enabled by the superior properties make these devices promising candidates for microwave power applications. Especially military systems such as electrically steered antennas (ESA) could benefit from more compact, broadband and efficient power generation. Another application area is robust front end electronics such as low noise amplifiers (LNAs) and mixers. A higher value of saturation velocity in SiC will allow higher current and hence higher power from the devices. Heat removal is a critical issue in microwave power transistors. The thermal conductivity of SiC is substantially higher than that of GaAs and Si. The large bandgap and high temperature stability of SiC and GaN also makes them possible to operate devices at very high temperatures. At temperatures above 300 0 C, SiC has much lower intrinsic carrier concentrations than Si and GaAs. This implies that devices designed for high temperatures and powers should be fabricated from WBG semiconductors, to avoid effects of thermally generated carriers. When the ambient temperature is high, the thermal management to cool down crucial hot sections introduces additional overhead that can have a negative impact relative to the desired benefits when considering the overall system performance. The potential of using SiC in semiconductor electronics has been already recognized half a century ago. Despite its well-known properties, it has taken a few decades to overcome the exceptional technological difficulties of getting SiC material to reach device quality and travel the road from basic research to commercialization. X Preface SiC exists in a large number of cubic (C), hexagonal (H) and rhombohedral (R) polytype structures. It varies in the literature between 150 and 250 different ones. For microwave and high temperature applications the 4H is the most suitable and popular polytype. Its carrier mobility is higher than in the 6H-SiC polytype, which is also commercially available. SiC as a material is thus most suited for applications in which high-temperature, high-power, and high-frequency devices are needed. To that end, this book is a good compendium of advances made since the early 1990s at numerous reputable international institutions by top authorities in the field. Sequence of chapters is arranged to cover a wide array of activities in a fairly coherent and effective manner. In 21 chapters of the book, special emphasis has been placed on the “materials” aspects and developments thereof. To that end, about 70% of the book addresses the theory, crystal growth, defects, surface and interface properties, characterization, and processing issues pertaining to SiC. The remaining 30% of the book covers the electronic device aspects of this material. Overall, this book will be valuable as a reference for SiC researchers for years to come. This book prestigiously covers our current understanding of SiC as a semiconductor material in electronics. Its physical properties make it more promising for high- powered devices than silicon. The volume is devoted to the material and covers methods of epitaxial and bulk growth. Identification and characterization of defects is discussed in detail. The contributions help the reader to develop a deeper understanding of defects by combining theoretical and experimental approaches. Apart from applications in power electronics, sensors, and NEMS, SiC has recently gained new interest as a substrate material for the manufacture of controlled graphene. SiC and graphene research is oriented towards end markets and has high impact on areas of rapidly growing interest like electric vehicles. Dr. Moumita Mukherjee, Scientist-B, Senior Asst. Professor Centre for Millimeter-wave Semiconductor Devices and Systems (CMSDS), Institute of Radio Physics and Electronics, University of Calcutta, India [...]... 14 Silicon Carbide – Materials, Processing and Applications in Electronic Devices Fig 8 Pressure-depth (p-h) response: (a) comparison of loading curves for 3C-SiC and a-SiC with varying chemical disorder (b) Loading and unloading curves from h = 4.1 Å (red) for 3C-SiC (c) Loading and unloading curves from h = 1.06 Å (blue) and h = 3.27 Å (red) for the χ = 0.008 assembly (d) Loading and unloading curves... by Tersoff potential appear to be in better agreement with ab initio and TBMD results In order to explore the role of chemical disorder in the changes of SiC topology, varying chemical disorder ranging from 0 to 0.7 are imposed on a set of 3C-SiC perfect crystal models by swapping pairs of random sites 8 Silicon Carbide – Materials, Processing and Applications in Electronic Devices The SRO and MRO of... 2007) 10 Silicon Carbide – Materials, Processing and Applications in Electronic Devices Simulated axial tensile testing is carried out on a set of SiC assemblies with varying chemical disorder χ, representing a range of disordered structures from crystalline to complete amorphous The full stress-strain dependences for different SiC assemblies with varying χ are shown in Fig 3 The stress-strain curve... Multimillion-Atom Nanoindentation Simulation of Crystalline Silicon Carbide: Orientation Dependence and Anisotropic Pileup Journal of Applied Physics, Vol 102, No 6, pp 063514, 20 Silicon Carbide – Materials, Processing and Applications in Electronic Devices Chen, Y.-C.;Lu, Z.;Nomura, K.-i.;Wang, W.;Kalia, R K.;Nakano, A.&Vashishta, P (2007) Interaction of Voids and Nanoductility in Silica Glass Physical... Carbide – Materials, Processing and Applications in Electronic Devices Will-be-set-by -IN- TECH 1.1 Carbon Carbon has six electrons Two of them will be found in the 1s orbital close to the nucleus forming a compact core, the next two going into the 2s orbital The remaining ones will be in two separate 2p orbitals The electronic structure of carbon is normally written 1s2 2s2 2p2 Contrary to silicon, ... The scale indicates how the atoms have moved (in angstroms)(Xue, K & Niu, L.-S., 2009) 12 Silicon Carbide – Materials, Processing and Applications in Electronic Devices 4.5 Fracture modes When the disorder SiC undergoes c-a transition with the increasing chemical disorder χ, the main deformation mechanism evolves from elastic deformation to localized atomic rearrangement, and then to percolating plastic... most promising for applications in which high-temperature, high-power, and high-frequency devices, catalyst support, high irradiation environments are needed Naturally occurring SiC is found only in poor quantities that explains the considerable effort made in the industrial SiC engineering At a first glad, silicon and carbide are close but a careful inspection reveals different properties leading to brothers... Part 1 Silicon Carbide: Theory, Crystal Growth, Defects, Characterization, Surface and Interface Properties 1 Mechanical Properties of Amorphous Silicon Carbide 1State Kun Xue1, Li-Sha Niu2 and Hui-Ji Shi2 Key Laboratory of Explosion Science and Technology, Beijing Institute of Technology 2School of Aerospace, FML, Department of Engineering Mechanics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China 1 Introduction... (2008) Irradiation Effects Induced in Silicon Carbide by Low and High Energy Ions Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B, Vol 266, No., pp 2766-71, 0168-583X Bolse, W (1998) Formation and Development of Disordered Networks in Si-Based Ceramics under Ion Bombardment Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms, Vol 141, No 1-4,... dramatic and homogeneous volume swelling until a critical dose level dependent on the temperature Afterwards the volume tends to saturate and the density of a-SiC is about 12% less than that of the crystalline 4 Silicon Carbide – Materials, Processing and Applications in Electronic Devices material The experimental values of the elastic modulus and hardness of a-SiC estimated from measurements of surface and . Density ( 10 3 Kg/m 3 ) Potential Energy (eV/atom) 0.0 10 0. 10 0. N 1. 896 N 3. 217 -6.39279 0.045 99.9 99.6 1. 662 1. 862 2 .18 5 3. 213 -6.32738 0 .13 3 99.5 98.9 1. 6 61 1.867 2 .19 1 3 .14 8 -6. 218 25 0.24. 98.4 97.8 1. 648 1. 872 2.225 3.087 -6 .10 155 0.39 96 .1 95 .1 1.646 1. 877 2.258 3.063 -5.997 51 0.422 96.3 92 .1 1.635 1. 880 2.28 3.058 -5.9726 0.54 96.2 84 .1 1. 610 1. 885 2.337 3.053 -5.8 819 1 0.7. SILICON CARBIDE - MATERIALS, PROCESSING AND APPLICATIONS IN ELECTRONIC DEVICES Edited by Moumita Mukherjee Silicon Carbide - Materials, Processing and Applications