Electrical characteristics and reliability of 4H-SiC pin diodes fabricated on in-house grown and commercial epitaxial films

4H-SiC pin diodes fabricated on epitaxial films grown in-house on various substrates along with devices fabricated on commercial epi-material are presented. Defects have been observed using electroluminescence imaging and are correlated with device electrical performance. Most diodes fabricated with in-house epi-layers up to 25 mu m thick show relatively stable forward biased operation, although stacking fault propagation has been confirmed in all samples using electroluminescence imaging. Significant stacking fault propagation induced in the vicinity of testing probes has been observed and resulting design considerations are discussed.