Electrical characterization of 5.4 MeV alpha-particle irradiated 4H-SiC with low doping density

Nickel Schottky diodes were fabricated on 4H-SiC. The diodes had excellent current rectification with about ten orders of magnitude between −50 V and +2 V. The ideality factor was obtained as 1.05 which signifies the dominance of the thermionic emission process in charge transport across the barrier. Deep level transient spectroscopy revealed the presence of four deep level defects in the 30–350 K temperature range. The diodes were then irradiated with 5.4 MeV alpha particles up to fluence of 2.6 × 1010 cm−2. Current–voltage and capacitance–voltage measurements revealed degraded diode characteristics after irradiation. DLTS revealed the presence of three more energy levels with activation enthalpies of 0.42 eV, 0.62 eV and 0.76 eV below the conduction band. These levels were however only realized after annealing the irradiated sample at 200 °C and they annealed out at 400 °C. The defect depth concentration was determined for some of the observed defects.