Enlarging the usable growth area in a hot-wall silicon carbide CVD reader by using simulation

The chemical vapor deposition (CVD) growth of large area silicon car-bide epitaxial layers with homogeneous properties requires a large area with homogeneous temperature in the CVD reactor. In the present work we show that by changing the design of the CVD reactor, but keeping the overall dimension the same, this area can be enlarged by at least a factor of three.. By using a simulation tool new designs can be tried out and optimized in the computer before testing them in practice. The simulation is set up as a 2D axisymmetric problem and validation is made in a 2D horizontal hot-wall CVD reactor. Very good agreements between simulated and measured results are obtained. The zone with a temperature variation of less than 5 degrees at an operating temperature of 1650 degreesC increased to 64% of the whale susceptor length. In addition, the power input needed to reach the operating temperature decreased by 15%.