Preparation of High-Purity Silicon Carbide Ceramics by Hot Pressing Sintering

Wafer carriers, as one of the key components in semiconductor manufacturing processes, have strict purity requirements. In this work, high-strength and high-purity SiC ceramics were fabricated using hot pressing sintering (HPS) combined with particle gradation. After hot pressing sintering with the addition of 15 wt% nano-SiC, a sintering temperature of 2200 degrees C, and a pressure of 40 MPa, the resultant SiC ceramics demonstrated excellent comprehensive properties with a high purity of 99.967%, a flexural strength of 458.71 MPa, a Vickers hardness of 23.31 GPa, and a fracture toughness of 4.06 MPa<middle dot>m1/2. The high-strength and high-purity SiC ceramics show potential to function as wafer carrier materials in semiconductor manufacturing processes.