Stacking Faults in β-SiC Whiskers

Shockley-Frank stacking faults in 6H-SiC

Optical investigations techniques used for stacking faults characterization in SiC

Stacking Faults (SFs) are important crystal defects in 4H-SiC [1]. They can be electrically active and, in this case, behave as deep quantum well (QW) traps for electrons [2]. This leads to the degradation of high voltage bipolar diodes [3]. The basic origin of SFs in SiC is the small total energy difference between two different polytypes. The net consequence is that they can appear spontaneou...

Anisotropic etching of SiC whiskers.

We have demonstrated a method of producing nanoplatelets or complex well-ordered nanostructures from silicon carbide (SiC) whiskers. Preferential etching of SiC whiskers in a mixture of hydrofluoric and nitric acids (3:1 ratio) at 100 degrees C results in the selective removal of cubic SiC and the formation of complex structures resembling a pagoda architecture. Possible mechanisms governing se...

Optical Investigations of stacking faults in 4H-SiC epitaxial layers: comparison of 3C and 8H polytypes

We present an analysis of the electronic structure of in-grown 3C and 8H stacking faults (SFs) in a 4H-SiC matrix. First the concept of low temperature photoluminescence optical signature of SFs is discussed. Then, the results of type-II quantum well (QW) model calculations are displayed, taking into account the effect of valence band offset, internal polarization field and non homogeneity of t...

Stacking faults and partial dislocations in graphene

We investigate two mechanisms of crystallographic slip in graphene, corresponding to glide and shuffle generalized stacking faults (GSF), and compute their -curves using Sandia National Laboratories Large-scale Atomic/Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator (LAMMPS). We find evidence of metastable partial dislocations for the glide GSF only. The computed values of the stable and unstable stackin...