Physical-Vapor-Transport growth of 4H silicon carbide single crystals by a tiling method

• 100 mm 4H-SiC crystal is grown by tiling four seed-crystal pieces. • The tiling method may help speed up the increase of the diameter of SiC crystals. • The polytype of the obtained crystal at the gaps are not affected by tiling. • The possible reason of dislocation distribution in different crystal orientation is discussed. Increasing the diameter and reducing the dislocation density of 4H silicon carbide (4H-SiC) single crystals are the development tendency of 4H-SiC single-crystal substrate to reduce the cost of 4H-SiC based devices. In this work, we use the growth of a 100 mm 4H-SiC single crystal as an example to demonstrate that the tiling approach is attractive to enlarge the diameter of physical-vapor-transport (PVT)-grown 4H-SiC single crystals by a single growth period. By titling four pieces of 4H-SiC seed crystals, a 100 mm 4H-SiC boule without crystal deterioration is obtained by the PVT growth method. The shape of the growth interface is convex and complete after the PVT growth, indicating the tiling gaps between neighboring seed-crystal pieces are healed after the PVT growth of 25-mm thick 4H-SiC. Wafers are obtained after sequential slicing, lapping, and chemical mechanical polishing (CMP). The high-resolution x-ray diffraction (HRXRD) rocking curve measurements of the wafer at the latest growth stage indicate that the 4H-SiC crystal is basically healed, with mesoscopic boundaries being created at the central area of the wafer. Raman spectra indicate that the healing polymorph across the tiling gaps is 4H-SiC. We find that threading edge dislocations (TEDs) dominate the dislocation types in the 4H-SiC substrate wafers at the initial, middle, and latest growth stages. As the PVT growth proceeds, the density of dislocations in 4H-SiC wafers significantly decreases, as a result of the crystalline healing. Our work opens a pathway to enlarge the size of 4H-SiC single crystals in a single PVT growth period, which paves the way for the high-efficiency growth of large-size 4H-SiC single-crystals.