Characterization of Inhomogeneity in Thermal Oxide SiO<sub>2</sub> Films on 4H-SiC Epitaxial Substrates by a Combination of Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy and Cathodoluminescence Spectroscopy

Abstract

We measured Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) and cathodoluminescence (CL) spectra of SiO2 films with a various thickness, grown on 4H-SiC substrates. The peak frequency of the transverse optical (TO) phonon mode was blue-shifted by about 5 cm−1 as the oxide-layer thickness decreased from 50-60 nm to 10 nm. The blue shift of the TO mode is considerd to be caused by interfacial compressive stresses in the oxide-layer. On the other hand, the TO phonon mode was found to dramatically decrease as the oxide-layer thickness decreased from 10 nm to 1.7 nm. The CL measurement indicates that the intensity of the CL peaks at about 460 and 490 nm attributed to oxygen vacancy centers (OVCs) for No.2 become stronger than that for No.1. From a comparison between FT-IR and CL measurements, we concluded that the red-shift of the TO phonon with decreasing the oxide-layer thickness can mainly be attributed to an increase in inhomogeneity at the SiO2/SiC interface with decreasing oxide-layer thickness.