Judith Woerle

In this work, the impact of 200 MeV proton irradiation at a fluence of 6 × 10¹² cm⁻² on the forward characteristics and the breakdown behaviour of nickel (Ni) and titanium (Ti) Schottky barrier diodes is explored. An improvement in the ideality factor, reduction in the threshold voltage, and an increase in the breakdown voltage is observed post irradiation. Point defects induced by the irradiation are likely responsible for the observed effects. Deep Level transient Spectroscopy (DLTS) measurements were performed on the irradiated Schottky diodes to analyse the defects created during the irradiation and gauge their potential role in changing the diode behavior. The defects induced by the high-energy protons were compared to those formed by low-energy proton irradiation at 1.8 MeV to a fluence of 1 × 10¹² cm⁻². Finally, consecutive DLTS measurements were performed after a series of reverse bias anneals at low temperatures from 350-700 K to explore the annealing behaviour of the defects induced by the proton irradiations.

The reconstruction of 4°off 4H-SiC surfaces was investigated using Si melting at 1550°C in a SiC/Si/SiC sandwich configuration. Despite systematically obtaining a macrostepped morphology over the entire areas in contact with the liquid Si, the steps were found wavy when using as-received 4H-SiC wafers. The regularity and straightness of the steps were significantly improved when the surface reconstruction was performed on processed surfaces: on re-polished surfaces the steps were found to be regular and straight in some cases, while this was constantly observed on as-grown epitaxial layers. After a reconstruction process of 2h, the best regularity of the steps was obtained with an average width of ̴ 3-5 μm. Increasing the processed area from 1.44 to 4 cm² did not affect the results which suggests a good scalability of the process.

We demonstrate that the multi-photon absorption edge transient-current technique (edge-TCT) can be used to three-dimensionally map the impact of defect distributions on device characteristics in situ inside the bulk of silicon carbide devices. A ∼5 μm wide defect-rich layer induced by proton irradiation at a depth of ∼27 μm was investigated in 4H-SiC samples and compared to the pristine case. Edge-TCT enables mapping of the position of the implantation peak as well as to identify the space charge polarity around the implanted region. The edge-TCT results are compared to Monte Carlo simulations of the proton irradiation that were verified by luminescence measurements and TCAD-based device simulations. In result, edge-TCT is found to be capable of distinguishing different device regions due to its charge sensitivity and directly visualizing space charge regions, facilitating calibration of charge carrier distribution models in semiconductor devices.

Scanning tunneling luminescence microscopy (STLM) and scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS) are used to study step‐bunched, oxidized 4H‐SiC surfaces prepared using a silicon melt process. The step‐bunched surface consists of atomically smooth terraces parallel to [0001] crystal planes, and rougher risers containing nanoscale steps formed by the termination of these planes. The striking topography of this surface is well resolved with large tip biases around −8 V and set currents less than 1 nA. Hysteresis in the STS spectra is preferentially observed on risers, suggesting that they contain a higher density of surface charge traps than the terraces where hysteresis is more frequently absent. Similarly, intense sub‐gap light emission centered around 2.4 eV is observed mainly on the risers albeit only with larger tunneling currents equal to or greater than 10 nA. The surface‐oxide‐related origin of this emission is reinforced by comparing tunneling electroluminescence spectra on the 4H‐ and 6H‐polytypes, and by the observation of a drastic reduction in emitted intensity after removal of the oxide in buffered HF. These results demonstrate the capability of STLM for the observation of surface impurities and defects responsible for sub‐gap light emission with spatial resolutions approaching the length scale of the defects themselves.

Muon spin rotation with low-energy muons (LE{\mu}SR) is a powerful nuclear method where electrical and magnetic properties of surface-near regions and thin films can be studied on a length scale of $\approx$\SI{200}{\nano\meter}. In this work, we show the potential of utilizing low-energy muons for a depth-resolved characterization of oxide-semiconductor interfaces, i.e. for silicon (Si) and silicon carbide (4H-SiC). Silicon dioxide (SiO$_2$) grown by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) and by thermal oxidation of the SiO$_2$-semiconductor interface are compared with respect to interface and defect formation. The nanometer depth resolution of {\mu}allows for a clear distinction between the oxide and semiconductor layers, while also quantifying the extension of structural changes caused by the oxidation of both Si and SiC.

In this work, the interface between 4H-SiC and thermally grown SiO₂ is studied using low energy muon spin rotation (LE-μSR) spectroscopy. Samples oxidized at 1300 °C were annealed in NO or Ar ambience and the effect of the ambience and the annealing temperature on the near interface region is studied in a depth resolved manner. NO-annealing is expected to passivate the defects, resulting in reduction of interface traps, which is confirmed by electrical characterization. Introduction of N during annealing, to the SiC matrix, results in a thin, carrier rich region close to the interface leading to an increase in the diamagnetic asymmetry. Annealing in an inert environment (Ar) seems to have much lesser impact on the electrical signal, however the μSR shows a reduced paramagnetic asymmetry, indicating a narrow region of low mobility at the interface.

Electrically active defects at the SiO₂/SiC interface can have detrimental effects on the device performance of SiC MOSFETs. Capacitance-or conductance-based analysis techniques are commonly used to extract the density of interface defects, despite having the disadvantage of requiring dedicated test structures for the analysis. Here, we discuss confocal sub-bandgap photoluminescence (PL) microscopy as a fast and reliable alternative to conventional electrical characterization techniques. For this purpose, the quality of the SiO₂/SiC interface after post-oxidation annealing in N₂O is studied both by confocal imaging as well as by the high-low and C-Ψ capacitance technique. We find excellent agreement between the optical and electrical analysis and observe a significant increase of the interface defect density for annealing temperatures below 1050 °C. Keywords: interface defect density, photoluminescence, capacitance-voltage

In this work, we study the impact of the dose rate on the electrical properties of aluminum (p-body, p⁺-body-contact) and phosphorous (n-source/drain) implanted 4H-SiC. We find no significant differences for dose rates ranging from 1×10¹¹ cm^-2s^-1 to 2−7×10¹² cm^-2s^-1. AFM scans across implanted and non-implanted regions after thermal oxidation and subsequent oxide etching reveal a clear dependence of the oxidation rate on the conduction type and doping concentration. In addition, we observe an increasing (decreasing) oxidation rate for increasing doping concentrations of the n-type (p-type) ion implanted areas.

In this work, we compare different quasi-static capacitance-voltage measurement systems by analyzing 4H-SiC n-type MOS capacitors and studying the influence of systematic errors when extracting the interface trap density (D_it). We show that the extracted D_it strongly depends on the calculation of the surface potential due to variations of the integration constant. In addition, the ramp-rate during the quasi-static measurement is identified as a sensitive measurement parameter whose noise level is amplified in the D_it extraction.