Electrical characteristics and deep-level transient spectroscopy of a fast-neutron-irradiated 4H-SiC Schottky barrier diode

The dependence of the electrical characteristics on the fast neutron fluence of an epitaxial 4H-SiC Schottky barrier diode (SBD) was investigated. The 30 MeV cyclotron was used for fast neutron irradiation. The neutron fluences evaluated through Monte Carlo simulation were in the 2.7 x 1011 to 1.45 x 1013 neutrons/cm2 range. Current-voltage and capacitance-voltage measurements were performed to characterize the samples by extracting the parameters of the irradiated SBDs. Neutron-induced defects in the epitaxial layer were identified and quantified using a deep-level transient spectroscopy measurement system developed at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute. As the neutron fluence increased from 2.7 x 1011 to 1.45 x 1013 neutrons/cm2, the concentration of the Z1/2 defects increased by approximately 20 times. The maximum defect concentration was estimated as 1.5 x 1014 cm-3 at a neutron fluence of 1.45 x 1013 neutrons/cm2. (c) 2023 Korean Nuclear Society, Published by Elsevier Korea LLC. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).