Ab initio simulations of homoepitaxial SiC growth.
We present first-principle calculations on the initial stages of SiC homoepitaxial growth on the beta-SiC(111)-(sqrt[3]xsqrt[3]) surface. We show that the nonstoichiometric reconstruction plays a relevant role in favoring the attainment of high-quality films. The motivation is twofold: On one hand, we find that the reconstruction controls the kinetics of adatom incorporation; on the other hand, we observe that the energy gain upon surface stability can induce the reorganization of the deposited material into a crystalline structure, thus revealing that a surface-driven mechanism is able to stabilize defect-free layer deposition on Si-rich surfaces.
Righi
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INFM-National Research Center on nanoStructures and bioSystems at Surfaces (S3), Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Via Campi 213/A, 41100 Modena, Italy. mcrighi@unimore.it
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Di Felice
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Catellani
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