Thermo-physical characteristics of 3C-SiC structure subjected to microwave exposure: A molecular dynamics study

Silicon carbide (SiC) is widely used as a susceptor for microwave hybrid heating applications owing to its exceptional microwave absorbing characteristics. In practice, it is challenging to characterize the thermo-physical behaviour of the microwave irradiated SiC-based targets experimentally due to interference of integrated measurement devices with microwaves. In this article, molecular dynamics simulations were performed to understand the atomistic response of a bulk 3C-SiC model during microwave heating. Atomistic simulations were performed at different electric field strengths (ranging from 0.1 to 0.5 V/Å) and frequencies (ranging from 100 to 500 GHz) to develop a numerical relationship between temperature and time in order to predict the thermal response of bulk 3C-SiC. On the other hand, the physical characteristics of the bulk 3C-SiC were determined by the plots between mean square displacement (MSD), time and diffusion coefficients. The results showed that at 0.5 V/Å electric field strength and 500 GHz frequency, the diffusion coefficient increased up to 88% as compared to the electric field strength of 0.1 V/Å at 500 GHz. A change of 75% in the physical phase of 3C-SiC structure with respect to the initial structure was confirmed by the distorted density distribution profile