Investigation of the temperature profile in a hot-wall SiC chemical vapor deposition reactor

The chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technique is widely used to grow epitaxial layers of silicon carbide. To meet the demands for high quality epitaxial layers, which have good morphology and a minimum variation of the doping and thickness, a good knowledge of the CVD process is essential. The present work uses a simulation tool to investigate several parameters influencing the heating of a hot-wall CVD reactor. The simulations are set up as 2D axisymmetric problems and validation is made in a 2D horizontal hot-wall CVD reactor. By applying the knowledge achieved from the simulations, the temperature profile is optimized to give as large area as possible with homogeneous temperature. New susceptor and coil designs are tested. A very good agreement between the simulated and the measured results is obtained. The new design has a temperature variation of less than 0.5% over more than 70% of the total susceptor length at an operating temperature of 1650degreesC. In addition, the power input needed to reach the operating temperature is decreased by 15% compared to the original design, 3D simulations are performed to show that the changes made in the 2D case give similar results for the real 3D case. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.