Synthesis of buried silicon nitride layer in SiC by nitrogen implantation

Ion beam synthesis has been successfully employed to produce a buried silicon nitride layer in silicon carbide. The elemental distributions, compositional and structural variations in the implanted samples have been studied using a combination of secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The studies revealed that the buried layer is composed of α-Si3N4 nanocrystallites after implantation at 650 °C and 1100 °C. It was found that the deviation from perfect crystallinity of the SiC layer above the buried nitride layer is less than 8%.