High-resolution transmission electron microscopy on silicon carbide whiskers

✍ Scribed by Mohamed Benaissa; Jacques Werckmann; Gabrielle Ehret; Jean Guille; Eric Peschiera

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1993
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 687 KB
• Volume: 1
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0927-7056
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00203598

✦ Synopsis

SiC whiskers were grown from the reaction of silicon monoxide (SiO) with activated carbon containing iron impurities. Growth proceeds through a VLS growth mechanism with SiO and CO as reacting gases. HRTEM combined with EDS shows that the SiC whisker is topped by a Fe3Si catalyst droplet. The SiC whisker is found to be one-dimensionally disordered along the [111] growth direction of an fcc crystal structure. Although the catalyst droplet is usually larger than the top face of the whisker, we observed a number of situations where the diameter of the droplet was smaller. The study of the SiC-Fe3Si interface showed that the growth is nucleated from the edges.