Surfactant-mediated MBE growth of beta-SiC on Si substrates

A new approach for overcoming the problems of the heteroepitaxial beta-SiC growth on Si substrates is hereby proposed. Namely, the surfactant effect i s investigated by using Ge as adsorbate. The better control of the Si-surfa ce conversion to SIC is targeted (conversion process). A structure is propo sed taking into account eventual incorporation of the Ge in the SiC lattice . The growth experiments towards the proposed structure were performed by s olid source MBE and the grown samples were ex-situ characterized by atomic force microscopy (AFM). In all cases, a clear difference between samples gr own with and without the Ge adsorbate layer is observed. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.