Formation of D-center in p-type 4H-SiC epi-layers during high temperature treatments

Summary form only given. The complete presentation was not made available for publication as part of the conference proceedings. The current work is devoted to studying the evolution of deep level defects in the lower half of the 4H-SiC bandgap after high temperature processing and ion implantation. Two as-grown and pre-oxidized 4H-SiC sets of samples have been thermally treated at temperatures up to 1950 °C for 10 min duration using RF inductive heating. Another set of as grown samples was implanted by 4.2 MeV Si ions at room temperature (RT) with different doses (1–4×10
⁸
cm
⁻²
). The so-called “D-center” at Ev+0.6 eV dominates and forms after the elevated heat treatments, while it shows no change after the ion implantations (Ev denotes the valence band edge). In contrast, the concentration of the so-called HK4 level at E
V
+1.44 eV increases with the implantation dose, whereas it anneals out after heat treatment at > 1700 °C.