Abstract
The emission current from a reverse-biased p-n junction in SiC is known to be proportional to the surface component of the junction current, which in turn appears to be related to the junction voltage by a power law. It is suggested that the surface current crosses the p-n junction not in surface microplasmas in the SiC but along paths in a thin surface film of silicon oxide heavily doped with carbon atoms from the SiC lattice. It is postulated that, during the thermal activation required to develop emission, changes occur in the structure of the oxide film which facilitate the ionization of the carbon inclusions to give a high donor density in the region of the reverse bias field. These ideas are shown to give a selfconsistent picture of the conduction and emission processes occurring in SiC cathodes and explanations of several observed phenomena are given.
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