Study of Nitrogen Concentration in Silicon Carbide

This work focused on studying the nitrogen concentration (CN) in SiC. The variations of CN in the synthesis of SiC powder as well as the transport during SiC crystal growth have been investigated for broad ranges of temperature and Ar pressure. Before SiC crystal growth, SiC powders were synthesized from high-purity silicon and carbon powders. The concentrations of nitrogen, free C, and free Si in the as-prepared powders were all measured. CN in the SiC source powder decreased with increasing temperature and decreasing Ar pressure, whereas it did not show a remarkable trend with the molar ratio of free Si to free C. SiC crystal was then grown by the physical vapor transport (PVT) technique using the as-prepared powder. The distribution of CN in the remaining material indirectly indicated the temperature field of crystal growth. In addition, compared with introducing N2 during SiC crystal growth, doping with nitrogen during synthesis of the SiC source powder might be a better method to control CN in SiC crystals.