Title: Monte Carlo study of the high temperature hydrogen cleaning process of 6H-silicon carbide for subsequent growth of nano scale metal oxide films

Authors: Ghulam Moeen Uddin; Katherine S. Ziemer; Bing Sun; Abe Zeid; Sagar Kamarthi

Addresses: Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA ' Chemical Engineering Department, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA ' Chemical Engineering Department, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA ' Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA ' Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA

Abstract: Surface preparation of silicon carbide (SiC) is critical to producing silicon carbide based wide bandgap semiconductor for electronic devices operating in high temperatures and/or harsh environments. In this research we study the impact of cleaning time and cleaning temperature on reflection high energy electron diffraction-based structural and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy based stoichiometric performance indicators. We used a neural network assisted Monte Carlo analysis of the high temperature hydrogen etching procedure. We observed that the optimum cleaning time and temperature ranges for structural and stoichiometric analyses corroborate generally. The detailed examination of the stoichiometric analysis points to narrow parameter ranges where both optimum surface chemistry and (√3 × √3) R30° reconstruction of the structure of the surface can be achieved. A range of 1,400-1,500°C cleaning temperature for a time period of 14-20 minutes was found to consistently result in (√3 × √3) R30° reconstruction with an optimum oxygen content.

Keywords: factor wise sensitivity analysis; nanoscale metal oxide films; hydrogen etching; X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy; XPS; molecular beam epitaxy; metal oxide thin films; functional oxide heterostructures; silicon carbide; surface processing; Monte Carlo experiments; nanomanufacturing; neural networks; interface engineering; nanotechnology; high temperature hydrogen cleaning; surface preparation; silicon carbide; wide bandgap semiconductors.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNM.2013.057588

International Journal of Nanomanufacturing, 2013 Vol.9 No.5/6, pp.407 - 430

Received: 06 Aug 2012
Accepted: 16 Feb 2013
Published online: 31 Mar 2014 *

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