Donor and double-donor transitions of the carbon vacancy related EH6∕7 deep level in 4H-SiC

Abstract

Using medium- and high-resolution multi-spectra fitting of deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS), minority carrier transient spectroscopy (MCTS), optical O-DLTS and optical-electrical (OE)-MCTS measurements, we show that the EH6∕7 deep level in 4H-SiC is composed of two strongly overlapping, two electron emission processes with thermal activation energies of 1.49 eV and 1.58 eV for EH6 and 1.48 eV and 1.66 eV for EH7. The electron emission peaks of EH7 completely overlap while the emission peaks of EH6 occur offset at slightly different temperatures in the spectra. OE-MCTS measurements of the hole capture cross section σp0(T) in p-type samples reveal a trap-Auger process, whereby hole capture into the defect occupied by two electrons leads to a recombination event and the ejection of the second electron into the conduction band. Values of the hole and electron capture cross sections σn(T) and σp(T) differ strongly due to the donor like nature of the deep levels and while all σn(T) have a negative temperature dependence, the σp(T) appear to be temperature independent. Average values at the DLTS measurement temperature (∼600 K) are σn2+(T) ≈ 1 × 10−14 cm2, σn+(T) ≈ 1 × 10−14 cm2, and σp0(T) ≈ 9 × 10−18 cm2 for EH6 and σn2+(T) ≈ 2 × 10−14 cm2, σn+(T) ≈ 2 × 10−14 cm2, σp0(T) ≈ 1 × 10−20 cm2 for EH7. Since EH7 has already been identified as a donor transition of the carbon vacancy, we propose that the EH6∕7 center in total represents the overlapping first and second donor transitions of the carbon vacancy defects on both inequivalent lattice sites.