Suppressing solvent compositional change during solution growth of SiC using SiC/C gradient crucible

To develop a long-term and stable growth technology for the solution growth of silicon carbide (SiC), the use of the newly fabricated SiC/C gradient crucible was studied. The fabrication of the SiC/C gradient structure was achieved by a two-step heat treatment, and a SiC/C structure with a high SiC areal ratio of more than 50% was obtained by Si infiltration into the porous graphite. Then, the top-seeded solution growth was performed using the fabricated SiC/C gradient crucible that revealed the suppression of the compositional change of the solution during the growth in comparison to the growth using a graphite crucible, which is the general method for the SiC solution growth. Furthermore, the SiC growth behaviors and crystal qualities were maintained when the SiC/C gradient crucible was used instead of the graphite crucible. The use of such a high-purity SiC/C gradient crucible was thus found to be effective in achieving crystal growth with less compositional change, which would enable long-term growth while maintaining a stable growth interface.