Growth of SiC from a liquid phase at low temperature

Growing good quality SiC epitaxial layers at temperature lower than 1400 degrees C is a challenging problem which could help reducing the costs, increasing the safety of the process or even give new perspectives. Toward this aim, liquid based growth techniques have been used. The Si-based melts should be carefully chosen considering several criteria. Furthermore, the implementation of a liquid phase for growing SiC epilayer can be performed in various manners (dipping or VLS mechanism) so that one has to choose the more appropriate technique. The discussion is illustrated with several results showing that the growth of SiC from a liquid phase at low temperature can address various important technological points such as experimental safety, p-type doping, on-axis or selective epitaxy. The recent demonstration of single-domain 3C-SiC heteroepitaxial layers on hexagonal SiC substrates confirms that liquid based growth has still unexpected qualities.