Thermal expansion of the hexagonal (4H) polytype of SiC

The principal axial coefficients of thermal expansion, alpha(11) and alpha(33), of the (4H) polytype of hexagonal alpha SiC have been determined by X-ray diffraction measurements in the temperature range 20-1000 C. Alpha(11) and alpha(33), derived from the lattice parameter measurements, were expressed as the second-order polynomials in temperature. Alpha(11) was found to be larger than alpha(33) over the entire temperature range, with a thermal expansion anisotropy factor A increasing from 0.04 at room temperature to 0.11 at 1000 C. The thermal expansion results for the (4H) structure were compared with previously published results for the cubic (3C) and the hexagonal (6H) SiC polytypes.