STRUCTURAL-PROPERTIES OF 6H-SIC EPILAYERS GROWN BY 2 DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES

In the present work we investigated the structural properties of 6H-Si C homoepitaxial layers utilizing microhardness and X-ray characterizat ion techniques. The growth was performed by chemical vapour deposition (CVD) and liquid phase epitaxy (LPE) under various growth conditions. The depth Knoop hardness profiles represent decreasing curves due to the indentation size effect. With load increasing the curves saturate reaching microhardness values comparable with the known Vickers ones. At about 0.4 mu m beneath the layer surfaces the curves show small pla teaus which may be attributed to structural inhomogeneity. This is sug gested by X-ray diffraction spectra taken from the same samples, which contain additional peaks besides the typical ones for 6H-SiC. (C) 199 7 Elsevier Science S.A.