Optical and magnetic resonance signatures of deep levels in semi-insulating 4H SiC

Abstract

We have studied semi-insulating (SI) 4H SiC grown by physical vapor transport (PVT) and by high-temperature chemical vapor deposition (HTCVD) using electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and infrared photoluminescence (IR-PL) to better understand the defect(s) responsible for the SI behavior. Although intrinsic defects such as the isolated carbon vacancy and in some cases the isolated Si vacancies have previously been observed by EPR in undoped SI SiC, their concentrations are an order of magnitude too low to be responsible for the SI behavior. We are able to observe the EPR signature of the carbon vacancy–carbon antisite pair (VC–CSi) pair defect in an excited state of its 2+ charge state in all PVT samples and some HTCVD samples. We also establish the IR–PL signature of this EPR center as the UD2 spectrum—a set of four sharp lines between 1.1 and 1.15eV previously observed by Magnusson et al. in neutron-irradiated 4H–SiC. We also observe the UD1 line, a pair of sharp IR–PL lines at ∼1.06eV and UD3, a single sharp line at ∼1.36eV. We propose a simple model for the SI behavior in material in which the (VC–CSi) pair defect is the dominant deep defect.