Surface defects generated by extrinsic origins on 4H-SiC epitaxial-wafers observed by scanning electron microscopy

Surface defects on 4H-SiC wafers with an epitaxial layer grown by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) were observed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Commercially available epitaxial-wafers with four or eight deg-off surface from the [0001] toward the [1120] directions were used for this experiment. 3C-SiC particles, triangular-defects, comets, obtuse-triangular-shaped-defects and micro-holes were identified in the SEM images. This paper can be considered as a catalog of SEM images and descriptions of various surface defects for 4H-SiC wafers with a CVD-grown epilayer.