Oxidation-induced majority and minority carrier traps in n- and p-type 4H-SiC

Abstract

We investigated majority and minority carrier traps in lightly doped n- and p-type 4H-SiC epitaxial layers before and after thermal oxidation using deep level transient spectroscopy and minority carrier transient spectroscopy. We detected oxidation-induced new minority carrier traps, HO1 (EV + 0.36 eV) and HO2 (EV + 0.54 eV) for n-type 4H-SiC, and EO1 (EC − 0.59 eV) and EO2 (EC − 0.84 eV) for p-type 4H-SiC after thermal oxidation at 1300 °C. After subsequent Ar annealing at 1550 °C, the HO1, HO2, and EO1 centers disappeared, whereas the concentration of the EO2 center increased. The properties of these carrier traps are discussed.