Qualitative study of beta silicon carbide residual stress by Raman spectroscopy

Abstract

Silicon carbide was grown by chemical vapor deposition on isotropic pyrolytic graphite substrates using methyltrichlorosilane as the source gas and hydrogen as the carrier gas. Raman microscopy was used to qualitatively determine the residual stress existing in chemical vapor deposition (CVD) beta silicon carbide. The results showed that the residual stress of CVD beta silicon carbide not only depends on the deposition temperature but also on the other reaction parameters, such as precursor concentration and carrier gas flow rate. Raman microscopy study results were tried to compare with those of the wafer central deflection method which was reported previously, and explained using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) photographs and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observations. The residual stress of CVD beta silicon carbide is always compressive and can be relaxed by recovery and recrystallization processes because intrinsic stress is the predominant stress in the films.