Yoichiro Mitani

Stacking fault expansion from basal plane dislocations converted into threading edge dislocations in 4H-SiC epilayers under high current stress

We evaluate the stacking faults (SFs) expansion from basal plane dislocations (BPDs) converted into threading edge dislocations (TEDs) under the current stress to the pn devices and analyzed the nucleation site of the SF by combined polishing, chemical etching in molten KOH, photoluminescence imaging, Focus ion beam, transmission electron microscopy, and Time-of-Flight secondary ion mass spectrometer techniques. It was found that the formation of SFs occurs upon the current stress levels of 400 A/cm2 where the diode area is not including BPDs in the drift layer after the high current stress, and the high current stress increases the SFs expansion density. It was also found the dependence of the junction temperature. The estimated activation energy for the expansion of SFs is Ea = 0.46 eV. The SF extends from the conversion point of the BPD into the TED within buffer layer. Even though BPDs converted into TEDs within the high doped buffer layer, SFs expand under high current stress.

Demonstration of High Quality 4H-SiC Epitaxial Growth with Extremely Low Basal Plane Dislocation Density

SiC epitaxial layer with low basal plane dislocation (BPD) density of 0.2/cm2 was successfully grown under higher C/Si ratio, which is found on the investigation about growth conditions. In order to study conversion mechanism of BPDs to threading edge dislocations (TEDs), angles between directions of BPD lines on a substrate and that of moving edges of steps ([11-2) during growth were examined. Consequently, it was revealed that almost 98% of BPDs are converted to TEDs for the case of the absolute angles above 45°. This high conversion ratio is considered to be induced by enhanced lateral growth under the higher C/Si ratio condition.

Influence of Growth Pressure and Addition of HCl Gas on Growth Rate of 4H-SiC Epitaxy

The reduction of the growth pressure was demonstrated to have the same effect as the addition of chloride-containing gas on preventing the Si nucleation and the epitaxy with high growth rate (>50 μm/h) was achieved by using the decreasing pressure condition in a horizontal CVD reactor without chloride-containing gas. The quality of a 30-μm-thick epilayer grown with 40 μm/h was also investigated. Downfall and triangle defect density in the layer was as low as 0.16 /cm2, indicating that a high quality epitaxial wafer can be easily obtained under the condition with high throughput in the sinple CVD system.

Demonstration of High Quality 4H-SiC Epitaxy by Using the Two-Step Growth Method

A new growth method for considerably suppressing generation of carrot and triangle defects is presented. Based on the investigation for the surfaces before and after the epitaxial growth, it becomes clear that those defects were results from micrometer-scale SiC particles. For removing the particles, pre-flow of H2 at high temperature before the growth was very effective. The density of those defects strongly depends on the condition of the pre-flow and especially decreased at Tp=1575°C and tp=180 sec.