Specular surface morphology of 4H-SiC epilayers grown on (1120) face

4H-SiC epitaxial growth on 4H-SiC substrates with (1 (1) over bar 00) and(11 (2) over bar 0) faces, which are perpendicular to the (0001) face, has been investigated. These epilayers are different in surface morphological structure from those grown on the conventional (0001) face. An extremely smooth surface can be obtained on (11 (2) over bar 0) without macrosteps and triangular defects, which are often observed for epilayers grown on the off-axis (0001) face. The (11 (2) over bar 0) epilayers exhibit one-order-of-magnitude lower surface defect area (0.010%) than the (0001) epilayers. In contrast, large elongated surface defects are observed for epilayers grown on (1 (1) over bar 00), probably due to the formation of stacking faults. The different arrangement of adatoms on the (1 (1) over bar 00) and (11 (2) over bar 0) faces may be responsible for the stacking fault formation on the (1 (1) over bar 00) face.