Investigation of Al droplet wetting behavior on highly-oriented SiC

In the integrated circuit industry, metal liquids are frequently in contact with chemical vapor deposited (CVD) SiC, and it is important to understand the interactions between CVD-SiC and metal droplets. In this study, the wetting behavior of Al on a highly oriented SiC surface was investigated, and the contact angle could be controlled from 6° to 153° at a wetting temperature (T_wet) of 1573-1773 K; the obtained contact angle range was larger than that of polycrystalline silicon carbide (T_wet = 873-1473 K, 9-113°) and single crystal silicon carbide (T_wet = 873-1473 K, 31-92°). The presence of many dislocations at the Al/SiC interface increased the interfacial energy, resulting in a greater contact angle for Al on the 〈111〉-oriented SiC coating surface than on the 〈110〉 one.