Abstract

In recent years considerable research has been focused on the study of cubic silicon carbide (β-SiC) for electronic applications.¹ It has displayed considerable potential for use in electronic instrumentation which must operate at elevated temperatures or in environments where there are high levels of Ionizing radiation. The first study of second harmonic generation and other nonlinear optical properties of an epitaxial film of β-SiC is described. Silicon carbide is a crystal with a zinc blende structure and a lattice constant of 4.3595 Å. It belongs to a 43m symmetry group and is similar in this respect to GaAs and other Ill—V semiconductors. Since β-SiC belongs to the cubic group of crystals, it Is isotropic; i.e., SiC has no intrinsic birefringence. This lack of birefringence suggests that phase matching in SiC is not possible.^2,3

© 1988 Optical Society of America