In this letter, we describe second harmonic conversion in cubic silicon carbide (&bgr;‐SiC) at a wavelength of 1.06 &mgr;m. Epitaxial layers of &bgr;‐SiC formed by vapor phase growth on silicon are indeed birefringent, and thus phase matchable. Phase matched films of &bgr;‐SiC have respectable conversion efficiencies even in the presence of adsorption at 532 nm. Our measured value of the effective second order nonlinear susceptibility for &bgr;‐SiC is &khgr;(2)eff=1.05±0.3×10−9esu.