Similarity analysis of stacking sequences in a SiC nanowire pair grown from the same catalyst nanoparticle using Levenshtein distance

Stacking faults are easily formed in silicon carbide (SiC) crystals, and this is also the case for SiC nanowires. The stacking faults exercise influences on SiC’s properties, therefore it is important to understand their formation mechanism and to control their formation for applications of SiC and its nanowires. In this study, we propose a method for investigating stacking faults’ formation mechanism in nanowires and provide its proof of concept. Stacking sequences in a pair of SiC nanowires that were grown from the same metal catalyst nanoparticle were quantified as a pair of binary sequences, and Levenshtein distances between partial sequences extracted from the two sequences were measured to detect similarity between them, and the result was compared with that obtained using a surrogate data of one sequence. The similarity analysis using Levenshtein distances works as a probe for investigating possible influences of some phenomena in the catalyst nanoparticle on the formation of stacking faults. The analysis did not detect a correlation between the two sequences. Although a possibility that the formation of stacking faults in the nanowires were owing to some phenomena in the catalyst nanoparticle cannot be denied, the extrinsic cause in the catalyst nanoparticle was not detected through our analysis in this case.