Silicon carbide is the hardest known natural substance and boasts high thermal conductivity and low expansion, in addition to chemically resisting acids.
Commercially, SiC is produced by heating silica sand with petroleum coke or anthracite coal at high temperatures in an electric furnace to the desired ratio, followed by chemical vapor deposition or chemical reduction processes.
Abrasiva tillämpningar
Silicon carbide is a wide bandgap semiconductor material with wide applications in terms of both manufacturing electronic devices requiring high temperatures or voltage operations and as an abrasive. Furthermore, silicon carbide forms an integral component in ceramic fibers used for applications including insulation and electrical transmission lines.
Silicium carbide (SiC), while not as hard or costly as diamond, cubic boron nitride or tungsten carbide, remains an ideal material for grinding and cutting applications due to its relatively low cost and high toughness. SiC is often found in grinding wheels, cutting tools and sandpaper where its high cutting speed sets it apart from similar materials such as aluminum oxide or feldspar.
Due to its durability, silicon carbide powder is used extensively in modern lapidary. Furthermore, its use as an abrasive blasting media in mining, construction, welding, pipework foundries, foundrys, foundries and metallurgy industries makes black silicon carbide powder an essential part of modern industry’s blasting media arsenal. Black silicon carbide powder also finds use as an industrial polishing and finishing agent on ceramics, glass and metals surfaces.
Silica carbide is also widely used in fiber optic splice manufacturing, where its resistance to heat and shock helps ensure reliable and consistent performance. Furthermore, silica carbide has recently been explored as an energy saving replacement fuel in electric vehicles; it saves both energy and emissions. Unfortunately for workers using products containing silica carbide for manufacturing or use abrasives may suffer respiratory conditions including diffuse interstitial fibrosis and lung cancer.
High Temperature Applications
Silicon carbide is an ideal material choice for high temperature applications requiring superior mechanical, thermal and electrical properties. This durable material resists oxidation or other chemical reactions that could compromise its functionality or safety, which makes it particularly suitable for abrasive and semiconductor production processes in harsh operational environments where Silicon Carbide production has become a standard for improving performance and extending equipment lifespan.
Acheson first developed the reaction-bonded process for manufacturing SiC in 1891. Heated mixtures of silica sand and coke are heated in an electric furnace equipped with a carbon conductor electrode and react into silicon carbide and carbon monoxide gas; from there ingots can be ground and milled to form specific shapes for applications.
SiC’s crystalline structure depends on both purity and method of formation; alpha SiC (a-SiC), with its hexagonal crystal structure similar to Wurtzite, is the most prevalent polymorph, while beta SiC (b-SiC) with its cubic zinc blende crystal structure is less common; both forms are used for abrasive and refractory applications – with a-SiC polytype often preferred due to its superior high temperature performance; its hardness of 32GPa places it among the hardest materials known.
Semiconductor Applications
Silicon carbide (known by its chemical name carborundum; also shared with moissanite gemstone) is an inorganic chemical compound composed of silicon and carbon that has been mass-produced since the late 19th century in powder form for use as an abrasive in sandpaper, grinding wheels and cutting tools. Refractory linings for industrial furnaces; bulletproof vest ceramic plates; wear-resistant parts of pumps and rocket engines; electronic applications including light emitting diodes substrate are among its various uses; many more uses exist for electronic applications than just as an abrasive.
Silicon Carbide (SiC) holds great promise as an advanced material for power electronics applications, due to its wide bandgap semiconductor properties and lower ON resistance per unit area than silicon transistors. Silicon carbide could enable significantly higher voltage tolerance than is achievable using traditional silicon transistors alone.
Manufacturers produce silicon carbide wafers through various processes, depending on their application. Single crystals may be formed using reaction-bonded growth at high temperatures using a plasticizer solution with silicon and carbon powders combined to form green SiC, before being fired at high temperatures. Or they could use chemical vapor deposition where gases entering a vacuum deposit layers of material onto substrates for chemical deposition growth.
Precision is essential when producing crystals for high-voltage devices like power semiconductors; wafers must then be cut into different shapes and sizes according to specific applications.
Power Electronics Applications
Silicon carbide has quickly emerged as a leader in power electronics. This breakthrough material boasts many advantages over traditional semiconductors like silicon (Si), such as higher breakdown electric fields tolerance and lower power losses due to wider band gaps; among its main applications are Schottky barrier diodes and field-effect transistors (FETs/MOSFETs).
Wide-bandgap silicon carbide devices offer superior performance over existing Si components in power systems and electrical motor control applications without significant performance degradation. SiC devices can increase current density, thus decreasing power loss per device by an order of magnitude over traditional Si devices while operating at significantly higher temperatures and frequencies to enhance reliability and efficiency.
EAG Laboratories has an in-depth knowledge of SiC’s electrothermal properties. Our bulk techniques, such as Glow Discharge Mass Spectrometry and X-Ray Fluorescence spectrometry are capable of accurate elemental analysis on various samples while our spatially resolved instruments such as Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry and Scanning Electron Microscopy Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy can verify concentration and distribution of impurities across samples.
At SiC Analysis Centers we possess the expertise necessary to analyze any SiC-based power system component from simple to complex. From diodes, FETs and MOSFET transistors we offer accurate analyses using cutting edge equipment available at our facilities.
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