Homoepitaxial layers of 4H-SiC have been grown on 4 degrees off-axis (0001) and (0001) substrates under various growth conditions by horizontal hot-wall chemical vapor deposition. On the (0001) epilayers, macroscopic step bunching has been significantly enhanced under C-rich condition. On the other hand, on the (0001) C-face, epilayers without macroscopic step bunching could be grown with a wide range of C/Si ratio at 1600 degrees C. The C/Si ratio dependence of background doping concentration of epilayers on the (0 0 0 1) C-face clearly showed site-competition behavior, and a lowest background doping of 4.4 x 10(14) cm(-3) could be attained by low pressure growth at 35 Torr. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.