Radiation hardness of n-type SiC Schottky barrier diodes irradiated with MeV He ion microbeam

Abstract

We studied the radiation hardness of 4H-SiC Schottky barrier diodes (SBD) for the light ion detection and spectroscopy in harsh radiation environments. n-Type SBD prepared on nitrogen-doped (∼4×1014cm−3) epitaxial grown 4H-SiC thin wafers have been irradiated by a raster scanning alpha particle microbeam (2 and 4MeV He2+ ions separately) in order to create patterned damage structures at different depths within a sensitive volume of tested diodes. Deep Level Transient Spectroscopy (DLTS) analysis revealed the formation of two deep electron traps in the irradiated and not thermally treated 4H-SiC within the ion implantation range (E1 and E2). The E2 state resembles the well-known Z1/2 center, while the E1 state could not be assigned to any particular defect reported in the literature. Ion Beam Induced Charge (IBIC) microscopy with multiple He ion probe microbeams (1–6MeV) having different penetration depths in tested partly damaged 4H-SiC SBD has been used to determine the degradation of the charge collection efficiency (CCE) over a wide fluence range of damaging alpha particle. A non-linear behavior of the CCE decrease and a significant degradation of the spectroscopic performance with increasing He ion fluence were observed above the value of 1011cm−2.