Hydrogen in the Wide Bandgap Semiconductor Silicon Carbide

Abstract

In this paper we give a review of our recent results related to the incorporation of hydrogen (H) in silicon carbide (SiC) and its interaction with acceptor doping atoms and implantation induced defects. Hydrogen is an abundant impurity in the growth of epitaxial SiC since it is present in the precursor gases and since H2 is used as the carrier gas. High concentrations of hydrogen are indeed incorporated into highly doped p-type epi-layers and it is shown that the main source is the carrier gas. Furthermore, it is revealed that the entire substrate becomes homogeneously filled with hydrogen during growth and that this hydrogen is more thermally stable than that in the epi-layer. Incorporation of hydrogen from an H2 ambient, at temperatures considerably lower than those used for epitaxy, is also demonstrated in p-type samples coated with a catalytic metal film. This effect is most likely the cause for the increased series resistance observed in p-type SiC Schottky sensor devices using a catalytic metal gate after annealing at 600 °C in a H2 containing ambient. Hydrogen is found to passivate the acceptors Al and B by forming electrically neutral H-acceptor complexes. Unlike in Si and GaAs, the two H-acceptor complexes in SiC exhibit very different dissociation energies, suggesting that the atomic configurations of the complexes are significantly different. The migration of mobile hydrogen in the presence of externally applied, or internal built-in, electric fields further reveals that hydrogen is present as H+ in p-type SiC. Finally, the redistribution and subsequent out-diffusion of low energy implanted 1H and 2H is investigated. Two annealing phases for the redistribution are observed, and the activation energies for the processes are extracted.