Texture evolution in rhombohedral boron carbide films grown on 4H-SiC(0001̄) and 4H-SiC(0001) substrates by chemical vapor deposition

Laurent Souqui; Sachin Sharma; Hans Högberg; Henrik Pedersen

doi:10.1039/d2dt02107b

Texture evolution in rhombohedral boron carbide films grown on 4H-SiC(0001̄) and 4H-SiC(0001) substrates by chemical vapor deposition

Dalton Trans. 2022 Oct 25;51(41):15974-15982. doi: 10.1039/d2dt02107b.

Authors

Laurent Souqui¹, Sachin Sharma¹, Hans Högberg¹, Henrik Pedersen¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Linköping University, SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden. henrik.pedersen@liu.se.

PMID: 36197373
DOI: 10.1039/d2dt02107b

Abstract

Boron carbide in its rhombohedral form (r-B_xC), commonly denoted B₄C or B₁₃C₂, is a well-known hard material, but it is also a potential semiconductor material. We deposited r-B_xC by chemical vapor deposition between 1100 °C and 1500 °C from triethylboron in H₂ on 4H-SiC(0001) and 4H-SiC(0001̄). We show, using ToF-ERDA, that pure B₄C was grown at 1300 °C, furthermore, using XRD that graphite forms above 1400 °C. The films deposited above 1300 °C on 4H-SiC(0001̄) were found to be epitaxial, with the epitaxial relationships B₄C(0001)[101̄0]‖4H-SiC(0001̄)[101̄0] obtained from pole figure measurements. In contrast, the films deposited on 4H-SiC(0001) were polycrystalline. We suggest that the difference in growth mode is explained by the difference in the ability of the different surfaces of 4H-SiC to act as carbon sources in the initial stages of the film growth.