Influence of substrate temperature, pressure and grit size on synthesis of SiC thin film by pulsed laser deposition technique

Pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique for depositing SiC on Si(100) substrates using Nd3+: YAG laser at 355 nm is studied. Influence of substrate temperature, ambient pressure and SiC powder grit size on both structure and morphology of SiC thin film is investigated. Experimental studies show that multicrystalline SiC film can be obtained with temperature ranging from 600°C to 700°C and at an ambient pressure of about 5.5×10-3 Pa. Although, alkali free glass show Micro-cracks on as deposited films, crystalline Si substrate did not show such micro cracks. Further, droplet formation on the deposited film was reduced significantly by selecting the grit size of SiC powder around 120. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies on deposited films clearly show multicrystalline (combined 3C-SiC and 4H-SiC) nature of SiC films. Based on the nano-indentation test, elastic modulus and hardness values of thin film were estimated as 300 GPa and 45 GPa. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.