Empirical potential approach to the formation of 3C-SiC/Si(110)

The formation of 3C-SiC/Si(110) is theoretically investigated using empirical interatomic potentials. The calculated system energies reveal that 3C-SiC(110)/Si(110) with one misfit dislocation (MD) is the most stable for the film thicknesses less than 2 monolayers (MLs), while the 3C-SiC(111)/Si(110) appears from 3 to 8 MLs. Furthermore, 3C-SiC(111) with 2.5° vicinal angle becomes the most stable beyond 9 MLs. The formation of 3C-SiC(111 )/Si(110) results from the energy profit in thin film layers due to lattice-matching between 3C-SiC(111) and Si(110), which overwhelms the energy deficit caused by large difference in coordination number at the interface between them with different orientation.