Electrical characterization of electron irradiated and annealed lowly-doped 4H-SiC

The effect of high energy electron (HEE) irradiation on nickel Schottky contacts fabricated on lowly-doped n-type 4H-SiC was investigated by deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) and high resolution Laplace-DLTS. The Schottky contacts were deposited by resistive evaporation of nickel and were observed to be of good rectification quality from current-voltage measurements. DLTS was performed up to 350K to investigate the presence of defects before and after HEE irradiation. HEE irradiation was observed to induce three deep level defects below 350 K at 0.42 eV, 0.62 eV and 0.76 eV below the conduction band minimum. These deep level defects are labelled E0.42, E0.62 and E0.76. Defects E0.42 and E0.76 were observed after the same electron fluence and were annealed out at the same temperature, suggesting that the defects could be strongly related. The effect of HEE irradiation and annealing on as-grown defects was also investigated and is reported.