Inhomogeneous electrical characteristics in 4H-SiC Schottky diodes

Abstract

Hundreds of current–voltage (I–V) measurements of Ni, Pt and Ti Schottky diodes on 4H–SiC were conducted at low applied voltages. The SiC substrates contained homoepitaxial layers grown by either chemical vapor deposition or sublimation. While near-ideal contacts were fabricated on all samples, a significant percentage of diodes (∼7%–50% depending on the epitaxial growth method and the diode size) displayed a non-ideal, or inhomogeneous, barrier height. These ‘non-ideal’ diodes occurred regardless of growth technique, pre-deposition cleaning method, or contact metal. In concurrence with our earlier reports in which the non-ideal diodes were modeled as two Schottky barriers in parallel, the lower of the two Schottky barriers, when present, was predominantly centered at one of the three values: ∼0.60, 0.85 or 1.05 eV. The sources of these non-idealities were investigated using electron-beam-induced current (EBIC) and deep-level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) to determine the nature and energy levels of the defects. DLTS revealed a defect level that corresponds with the low- (non-ideal) barrier height, at ∼0.60 eV. It was also observed that the I–V characteristics tended to degrade with increasing deep-level concentration and that inhomogeneous diodes tended to contain defect clusters. Based on the results, it is proposed that inhomogeneities, in the form of one or more low-barrier height regions within a high-barrier height diode, are caused by defect clusters that locally pin the Fermi level.