Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) epitaxy at low temperature and high growth rate has always been difficult and is nowadays a challenge for the fabrication of high quality materials like SiGeC. We demonstrate that the use of nitrogen instead of hydrogen as carrier gas offers several advantages for low temperature epitaxy. It allows to grow smooth and high quality Si, SiGe and SiGe:C epitaxial layers at lower temperature and higher growth rate compared to the standard epitaxy process which uses hydrogen as carrier gas. (C) 2003 Published by Elsevier B.V.