Design and experiment of 4H-SiC JBS diodes achieving a near-theoretical breakdown voltage with non-uniform floating limiting rings terminal

•The key parameters of FLRs termination are analyzed.•A near-ideal breakdown voltage of 3.7 kV is achieved.•The experimental results show a great agreement with simulated results.

In this paper, a 4H-SiC Junction Barrier Schottky diode (JBS) with non-uniform floating limiting rings (FLRs) has been investigated and fabricated using n type 4H-SiC epitaxial layer with thickness of 31 μm and doping concentration of 3.3 × 1015 cm−3. According to the simulated results, the key parameters of a FLRs design to achieve a high voltage are the minimum space between two adjacent doped rings, spacing growth step and number of rings. The experimental results also show a great agreement with simulated results. Meanwhile, a near-ideal breakdown voltage of 3.7 kV was achieved, which yield around 95% of the parallel-plane breakdown voltage. The forward characteristics show that the fabricated JBS diodes have a forward current density of 210 A/cm2 at 3 V and a specific on-resistance (Rsp-on) of 7.58 mΩ cm2. Different FLRs parameters have no effect on the forward device performance.