Abstract.  Silicon carbide based thin film due to its excellent physical and electrical properties has a bright future applications in making devices suitable in extreme conditions of temperature, frequency and power etc.

This paper presents a study on preparation of transparent and crystalline silicon carbide thin films on Si(100) substrates by pulse laser ablation techniques using high density silicon carbide targets as the source material. A KrF excimer laser (I = 248nm, pulse width- 20ns) was used for this purpose. Under vacuum (2 X 10^-5bar) the films were deposited at a low temperature and then further annealed at 850°C for 1h and etched to obtain transparent and crystalline SiC film suitable for MEMs applications. Phase and microstructural studies of the same were carried out by glancing angle X-ray diffraction and Reflectivity techniques, UV-Visible spectrophotometer and SEM etc.

Amorphous silicon carbide films with presence of C as well as Si clusters were obtained at low temperature which on thermal annealing resulted formation of β-SiC precipitates. Thermal annealing with a slow ramp was found to be more efficient for strain relaxation which arise due the thermal expansion coefficient mismatch due to SiC and Si. Detail results will be reported in the paper.