Behaviour of the 3C-SiC(100) c(2 × 2) (C-terminated) and 3 × 2 (Si-rich) surface reconstructions upon initial H2/CH4 microwave plasma exposures

✍ Scribed by Portail, M. ;Saada, S. ;Delclos, S. ;Arnault, J. C. ;Soukiassian, P. ;Bergonzo, Ph. ;Chassagne, Th. ;Leycuras, A.

• Book ID: 105363524
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 296 KB
• Volume: 202
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0031-8965
• DOI: 10.1002/pssa.200561921

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

We present a comparative study of C‐terminated and Si‐rich 3C–SiC(100) surfaces exposed to a H~2~/CH~4~ microwave plasma used in diamond growth. Each surface is characterized before and after short plasma exposures using LEED, XPS and STM techniques. In both cases, a 5 minutes plasma exposure led to a 1 × 1 LEED pattern associated with a slight oxygen contamination as evidenced by XPS. However, upon additional annealings, the two surfaces exhibit very different behaviors. For the Si‐terminated 3 × 2 surface, a 1 × 1 → 2 × 1 transition occurring at 1173 K is observed while the initial c(2 × 2) surface reconstruction is restored at 1323 K for the C‐terminated surface. Furthermore, the XPS measurements show a correlation between oxygen surface release and LEED transitions. An atomic arrangement is observed by STM for the C‐terminated surface (© 2005 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)