High quality and wafer-scale cubic silicon carbide single crystals

Silicon carbide (SiC) is an important semiconductor material for fabricating power electronic devices that exhibit higher switch frequency, lower energy loss and substantial reduction both in size and weight in comparison with its Si-based counterparts1-4. Currently, most devices, such as metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors, which are core devices used in electric vehicles, photovoltaic industry and other applications, are fabricated on a hexagonal polytype 4H-SiC because of its commercial availability5. Cubic silicon carbide (3C-SiC), the only cubic polytype, has a moderate band gap of 2.36 eV at room-temperature, but a superior mobility and thermal conduction than 4H-SiC4,6-11. Moreover, the much lower concentration of interfacial traps between insulating oxide gate and 3C-SiC helps fabricate reliable and long-life devices7-10,12-14. The growth of 3C-SiC crystals, however, has remained a challenge up to now despite of decades-long efforts by researchers because of its easy transformation into other polytypes during growth15-19, limiting the 3C-SiC based devices. Here, we report that 3C-SiC can be made thermodynamically favored from nucleation to growth on a 4H-SiC substrate by top-seeded solution growth technique(TSSG), beyond what's expected by classic nucleation theory. This enables the steady growth of quality and large sized 3C-SiC crystals (2~4-inch in diameter and 4.0~10.0 mm in thickness) sustainable. Our findings broaden the mechanism of hetero-seed crystal growth and provide a feasible route to mass production of 3C-SiC crystals,offering new opportunities to develop power electronic devices potentially with better performances than those based on 4H-SiC.
Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures