Raman study on residual strains in thin 3C-SiC epitaxial layers grown on Si(001)

Raman scattering measurement has been used to study the residual strains in the thin 3C-SiC/Si(001) epilayers with a variation of film thickness from 0.1 to 1.2 mu m. which were prepared by chemical vapor deposition (CVD)grow th. Two methods have been exploited to figure our the residual strains and the exact LO bands. The final analyzing results show that residual strains exist in the 3C-SiC epilayers. The average stress is 1.3010 GPa, and the re lative change of the lattice constant is 1.36 parts per thousand. Our measu rements also show that 3C-SiC phonons are detectable even for the samples w ith film thickness in the range of 0.1 to 0.2 mu m. (C) 2000 Published by E lsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.