Graduation Year

2003

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

M.S.Ch.E.

Degree Granting Department

Chemical Engineering

Major Professor

John Wolan, Ph.D.

Co-Major Professor

Stephen E. Saddow, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Andrew Hoff, Ph.D.

Keywords

epitaxy, epitaxial, microelectronics, vacuum, crystal growth

Abstract

The goal of this thesis is to present the design and development of a chemical vapor deposition reactor for the growth of high quality homoepitaxy silicon carbide films for electronic device applications. The work was performed in the Nanomaterials and Nanomanufacturing Research Center at the University of South Florida from 8/2001-5/2003.

Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is the technique of choice for SiC epitaxial growth. Epitaxial layers are the building blocks for use in various semiconductor device applications. This thesis reports on a SiC epitaxy process where a carrier gas (hydrogen) is saturated with reactive precursors (silane and propane) which are then delivered to a semiconductor substrate resting on a RF induction heated SiC coated graphite susceptor. Growth proceeds via a series of heterogeneous chemical reactions with several steps, including precursor adsorption, surface diffusion and desorbtion of volatile by-products.

The design and development of a reactor to make this process controlled and repeatable can be accomplished using theoretical and empirical tools. Fluid flow modeling, reactor sizing, low-pressure pumping and control are engineering concepts that were explored. Work on the design and development of an atmospheric pressure cold-wall CVD (APCVD) reactor will be presented. A detailed discussion of modifications to this reactor to permit hot-wall, low-pressure CVD (LPCVD) operation will then be presented. The consequences of this process variable change will be discussed as well as the necessary design parameters. Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) calculations, which predict the flow patterns of gases in the reaction tube, will be presented. Feasible CVD reactor design that results in laminar fluid flow control is a function of the prior mentioned techniques and will be presented.

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