Recrystallization of MeV Si implanted 6H-SiC

Abstract

Microstructures of recrystallized layers in 8 MeV Si3+ ion implanted 6-H-SiC (0001) wafers have been characterized by means of transmission electron microscopy. Epitaxial recrystallization of buried amorphous layers was observed at annealing temperature as low as 1000 °C. Layer-by-layer epitaxy of 6H-SiC initially occurred and it was changed to columnar growth when layer-by-layer growth exceeded 100 nm in thickness. From the microdiffraction analysis, it was found that the columnar regions are defected 6H-SiC with crystal orientations different from the substrate. In addition to 6H-SiC, epitaxial 3C-SiC was also confirmed in the recrystallized layer. Based on these results, we have proposed a structure model of the recrystallized layer in which stacking faults in the columnar regions are induced by mismatched connections between the columnar and layered 6H-SiC regions.