Molecular dynamics simulations of reactive etching of SiC by energetic fluorine

Molecular dynamics simulations were performed to investigate F continuously bombarding Si-terminated 3C-SiC(001) surfaces with incident energies of 10, 100 and 200 eV at normal incidence and room temperature. For an energy of 10 eV, deposition only occurs on the surface. For energies larger than 10 eV, accompanying the saturation of F uptake, a balance between F deposition from the incident atoms and F removal from the fluorinated substrate is established, while the steady-state etching is reached. The simulated results demonstrate that Si atoms in SiC are preferentially etched, which is in good agreement with experiments. The preferential etching of Si results in formation of a C-rich interfacial layer whose thickness increases with increasing incident energy. The analysis shows that Si-containing etch products are dominant.