Yusuke Uenishi

Synchrotron x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy study on thermally grown SiO2/4H-SiC(0001) interface and its correlation with electrical properties

The correlation between atomic structure and the electrical properties of thermally grown SiO2/4H-SiC(0001) interfaces was investigated by synchrotron x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy together with electrical measurements of SiC-MOS capacitors. We found that the oxide interface was dominated by Si-O bonds and that there existed no distinct C-rich layer beneath the SiC substrate despite literature. In contrast, intermediate oxide states in Si core-level spectra attributable to atomic scale roughness and imperfection just at the oxide interface increased as thermal oxidation progressed. Electrical characterization of corresponding SiC-MOS capacitors also indicated an accumulation of both negative fixed charges and interface defects, which correlates well with the structural change in the oxide interface and provides insight into the electrical degradation of thermally grown SiC-MOS devices.

Investigation of Surface and Interface Morphology of Thermally Grown SiO2 Dielectrics on 4H-SiC(0001) Substrates

Surface and interface morphology of thermal oxides grown on 4-off (0001) oriented 4H-SiC substrates by dry O2 oxidation was investigated using atomic force microscopy (AFM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). When step bunching was present on a starting wafer, oxide surface roughness was much larger than that of the starting 4H-SiC surface. This is attributed to the difference in oxidation rate between the terrace and the step face. A step-terrace structure on 4H-SiC(0001) was mostly preserved on the oxide surface, but pronounced oxidation occurred around the step bunching. Cross-sectional TEM observation showed that the SiO2/4H-SiC interface became smoother than the initial surface and the thickness of the SiO2 layer fluctuated. Such SiO2 thickness fluctuation may cause a local electric field concentration when a voltage was applied to the oxide, thus degrading the dielectric breakdown characteristics of 4H-SiC metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) devices.

Usefulness of noise adaptive non-linear Gaussian filter in FDG-PET study

Objective: In positron emission tomography (PET) studies, shortening transmission (TR) scan time can improve patient comfort and increase scanner throughput. However, PET images from short TR scans may be degraded due to the statistical noise included in the TR image. The purpose of this study was to apply non-linear Gaussian (NLG) and noise adaptive NLG (ANLG) filters to TR images, and to evaluate the extent of noise reduction by the ANLG filter in comparison with that by the NLG filter using phantom and clinical studies.Methods: In phantom studies, pool phantoms of various diameters and injected doses of 2-deoxy-2-[18F]fluoro-D-glucose (FDG) were used and the coefficients of variation (CVs) of the counts in the TR images processed with the NLG and ANLG filters were compared. In clinical studies, two normal volunteers and 13 patients with tumors were studied. In volunteer studies, the CV values in the liver were compared. In patient studies, the standardized uptake values (SUVs) of tumors in the emission images were obtained after processing the TR images using the NLG and ANLG filters.Results: In phantom studies, the CV values in the TR images processed with the ANLG filter were smaller than those in the images processed with the NLG filter. When using the ANLG filter, their dependency on the phantom size, injected dose of FDG and TR scan time was smaller than when using the NLG filter. In volunteer studies, the CV values in the images processed with the ANLG filter were smaller than those in the images processed with the NLG filter, and were almost constant regardless of the TR scan time. In patient studies, there was an excellent correlation between the SUVs obtained from the images with a TR scan time of 7 min processed with the NLG filter (x) and those obtained from the images with a TR scan time of 4 min processed with the ANLG filter (y) (r = 0.995,y = 1.034x - 0.075).Conclusions: Our results suggest that the ANLG filter is effective and useful for noise reduction in TR images and shortening TR scan time while maintaining the quantitative accuracy of FDG-PET studies.

Impact of Interface Defect Passivation on Conduction Band Offset at SiO2/4H-SiC Interface

The change in energy band alignment of thermally grown SiO2/4H-SiC(0001) structures due to an interface defect passivation treatment was investigated by means of synchrotron radiation photoelectron spectroscopy (SR-PES) and electrical characterization. Although both negative fixed charge and interface state density in SiO2/SiC structures were effectively reduced by high-temparature hydrogen gas annealing (FGA), the conduction band offset (ΔEc) at the SiO2/SiC interface was found to be decreased by about 0.1 eV after FGA. In addition, a subsequent vacuum annealing to induce hydrogen desorption from the interface resulted in not only a slight degradation in interface property but also a partial recovery of ΔEc value. These results indicate that the hydrogen passivation of negatively charged defects near the thermally grown SiO2/SiC interface causes the reduction in conduction band offset. Therefore, the tradeoff between interface quality and conduction band offset for thermally grown SiO2/SiC MOS structure needs to be considered for developing SiC MOS devices.

Extraction of arterial input function for measurement of brain perfusion index with 99mTc compounds using fuzzy clustering.

Cerebral blood flow (CBF) can be quantified non-invasively using the brain perfusion index (BPI) determined from radionuclide angiographic data generated with 99mTc-hexamethylpropylene amine oxime (99mTc-HMPAO). When measuring the BPI, manual drawing of regions of interest (ROIs) (manual ROI method) for the extraction of the arterial input function (AIF) can lead to serious individual differences. The purpose of this study was to apply the fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering method to determine AIF, and to investigate its usefulness in comparison with the manual ROI method. Radionuclide angiography was performed using a bolus injection of about 555 MBq of 99mTc-HMPAO, followed by sequential imaging (1 sec/frame×120 s) using a solid-state gamma camera, and the BPI values were calculated using spectral analysis. To investigate the dependence of BPI on the ROI size, we drew five ROIs with different sizes over the aortic arch, and calculated the BPI using the manual ROI method [BPI(manual)] and the FCM clustering method [BPI(FCM)]. Furthermore, we asked 10 individuals to draw ROIs to investigate the inter-operator variability of the two methods. The mean and standard deviation (SD) of BPI(manual) increased with increasing ROI size, whereas the mean of BPI(FCM) was almost constant regardless of the ROI size; the SD of BPI(FCM) was smaller than that of BPI(manual). The inter-operator variability of the FCM clustering method was smaller than that of the manual ROI method. These results suggest that the FCM clustering method appears to be useful for the measurement of BPI, because it allows a reliable and objective determination of AIF.

Dielectric Properties of Thermally Grown SiO2 on 4H-SiC(0001) Substrates

The bulk properties of thermally grown SiO2 on 4H-SiC(0001) substrates were thoroughly investigated by capacitance-voltage (C-V) measurement, atomic force microscopy (AFM), spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE), x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS). The equivalent oxide thickness (EOT) extracted from the capacitance-voltage (C-V) characteristics of TiN/SiO2 capacitors was proportional to the physical thickness (Tphys), but the slope of the linear fit was found to be 1.11, indicating that the permittivity of SiO2 on 4H-SiC formed by thermal oxidation is only about 3.5, which is lower than the commonly accepted value of 3.9. Since XPS analysis revealed that the oxide of SiC was stoichiometric and the atomic concentration of residual carbons in the oxide measured by SIMS was sufficiently low (1017 cm-3), the low permittivity of thermal oxides of 4H-SiC may originate from the reduced bulk density, which can be predicted by the Clausius-Mossotti relation.

Retarded Oxide Growth on 4H-SiC(0001) Substrates due to Sacrificial Oxidation

The impact of a sacrificial oxidation treatment on subsequent gate oxide formation on 4H-SiC(0001) substrates was investigated. Although x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis revealed that the SiC surface after removing a 40-nm-thick sacrificial oxide by diluted HF solution was almost identical to that of an as-grown epilayer, the subsequent dry O2 oxidation resulted in a thinner SiO2 layer for the sample with the sacrificial oxidation in the ultrathin film regime (~3 nm). The metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) capacitor with sacrificial oxidation also exhibited a larger frequency dispersion in capacitance-voltage (C-V) characteristics, indicating that interface property had been degraded. However, when the oxide thickness reached about 10 nm, there was no difference in frequency dispersion with and without sacrificial oxidation. This means that the SiO2 growth in the initial stage of oxidation was significantly affected by the sacrificial oxidation treatment.

Correlation between surface morphology and breakdown characteristics of thermally grown SiO 2 dielectrics in 4H-SiC MOS devices

We have investigated the surface and interface morphology of a thermally grown SiO2/4H-SiC(0001) structure by atomic force microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. It was found that the surface roughness results in thickness fluctuation of thermal SiO2 due to the pronounced oxidation near the steps. Thus, the localized high elevated electric field near the steps accelerates dielectric degradation and hence results in poor gate oxide reliability.

Synchrotron Radiation Photoelectron Spectroscopy Study of Thermally Grown Oxides on 4H-SiC(0001) Si-Face and (000-1) C-Face Substrates

The fundamental aspects of thermal oxidation and oxide interface grown on 4H-SiC(0001) Si-face and (000-1) C-face substrates were investigated by means of high-resolution x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) using synchrotron radiation together with electrical measurements of SiC-MOS capacitors. We found that, for both cases, there existed no distinct C-rich transition layer despite the literature. In contrast, atomic scale roughness causing degradation of SiC-MOS devices, such as negative fixed charge and electrical defects just at the oxide interface, was found to be introduced as thermal oxidation progressed, especially for the (000-1) C-face substrate.