Rapid Silicon Carbide Micro-Crystal Growth By High Power Co2 Laser

This paper presents an ultra-fast growth of silicon carbide crystal with the size up to 50 mu m from SiC nanopowders. By using a CO2 laser with a power of 30W to heat the silicon carbide nanopowders in a vacuum chamber, the nanopowders tends to congregate together to form larger particles first. Following the slow cooling process, the congregate formation would further transform to final SiC micro-crystals. The two types of final products grown from quenching process and slow cooling process were analyzed by SEM. The lattice structure of final SiC micro-crystal was determined to be hexagonal structure according to the XRD analysis.