Rapid silicon carbide micro-crystal growth by high power CO2 laser

This paper presents an ultra-fast growth of silicon carbide crystal with the size up to 50 μm from SiC nanopowders. By using a CO₂ laser with a power of 30W to heat the silicon carbide nanopowders in a vacuum chamber, the nanopowders tends to congregate together to form larger particles first. Following the slow cooling process, the congregate formation would further transform to final SiC micro-crystals. The two types of final products grown from quenching process and slow cooling process were analyzed by SEM. The lattice structure of final SiC micro-crystal was determined to be hexagonal structure according to the XRD analysis.