Silicon carbide formation in reactive silicon-carbon multilayers

An alternative low thermal budget silicon carbide syntheses route is presented. The method is based on self-propagating high-temperature synthesis of binary silicon-carbon-based reactive mul-tilayers. With this technique, it is possible to obtain cubic polycrystalline silicon carbide at relatively low annealing temperatures by a solid state reaction. The reaction starts above 600 °C. The transformation process proceeds in a four-step process. The reaction enthalpy was determined to be (-70 ± 4) kJ/mol.