The effect of nitrogen and aluminum as doped impurities on the stability of SiC polytypes (C- or Si-face 4H and 6H substrates) formed by physical vapor transport (PVT) was investigated. The stability of the polytypes was analyzed using classical thermodynamic nucleation theory with numerical results obtained from a global model including heat, mass and species transfer in a PVT furnace. The results reveal that the formation of 4H-SiC was more stable than that of 6H-SiC when a grown crystal was doped with nitrogen using C-face 4H- and 6H-SiC as seed crystals. In contrast, formation of 6H-SiC was favored over 4H-SiC when Si-face 4H- and 6H-SiC seed crystals were used. Meanwhile, the formation of 4H-SiC was more stable than that of 6H-SiC when aluminum was the dopant and C- and Si-faces of 6H-SiC were used as seed crystals. Formation of 6H-SiC occurred over that of 4H-SiC in the cases of C- and Si-faces of 4H-SiC as seed crystals. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.