Silicon carbide has long been a curiosity in the semiconductor world, with its large band gap, high temperature tolerance, and high heat conductivity making it seem attractive for power control applications. Tesla’s adopting it for the Model 3 inverter has suddenly made the technology a credible contender for its application niches.
Among the last stages of an “educational ontogeny should recapitulate technological phylogeny” curriculum is transistor fabrication. However, in attempting to come up with something for this stage (targeting home schools) zone refinement of silicon has been particularly daunting. I’m starting to wonder if SiC may be the way forward.
One problem with silicon carbide is that its melting point is 3100° K, almost twice that of silicon (1687° K). Processes such as zone refining to make pure material are going to be more challenging than for silicon. I don’t know if there is an industrial source of silicon carbide which would be sufficiently pure to make transistors on an artisanal scale.