Scattering mechanisms and anomalous conductivity of heavily N-doped 3C-SiC in ultraviolet region

Using the first-principles density functional method, we investigate the band structures and conductivity spectra for N-doped 3C-SiC. It is found that conductivity peaks of heavily N-doped 3C-SiC are observed in the ultraviolet (UV), visible and infrared (IR) regions while the peaks can be only seen in the UV region for 3C-SiC. In the UV region, the conductivity peaks of 3C-SiC are obviously higher than those of N-doped 3C-SiC. According to the data of band structures, we calculate the ionized impurity scattering, inter-carrier scattering and neutral impurity scattering. The calculation results show that the scattering by incomplete ionization N to electrons and inter-carrier scattering have large effect on the conductive behavior of heavily N-doped 3C-SiC at room temperature. In the UV region, the conductivity of 3C-SiC depends on long-wavelength optical wave scattering, which has a longer relaxation time than that inter-carrier scattering and neutral scattering. This is the reason of anomalous conductivity of N-doped 3C-SiC in the UV region. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.