Stacking faults in silicon carbide whiskers

Stacking faults in SiC whiskers grown by three different growth mechanisms; vapor-solid (VS), two-stage growth (TS) and vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) mechanism in the carbothermal reduction system were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The content of stacking faults in SiC whiskers increased with decreasing the diameter of whiskers, i.e. the small diameter whiskers (<1 μm) grown by the VS, TS and VLS mechanisms have heavy stacking faults whereas the large diameter whiskers (>2 μm) grown by the VLS mechanism have little stacking faults. Heavy stacking faults of small diameter whiskers were probably due to the high specific lateral surface area of small diameter whiskers.