Photoluminescence and Electroluminescence Imaging of Carrot Defect in 4H-SiC Epitaxy

Electroluminescence (EL) and photoluminescence (PL) imaging techniques were successfully used to reveal defect features in 34 carrots in 4H-SiC epilayers. Because EL and PL techniques are nondestructive and require minimal sample preparations, many carrots can be examined over a reasonable time. Our findings showed that some carrots had the basic components consistent with the model proposed by Benamara et al., but also contained additional features beyond the basic components. Eight carrots contained multiple bright line features, and 25 out of 50 bright line features exhibited multiple line characteristics. Eleven carrots were discovered to contain basal plane faults (B’s) and the corresponding small stacking faults (S’s) near the carrot heads. Not all the carrots lie along the off-cut direction; a couple were oriented 5° from the off-cut. Of the seven carrots with shape lengths -200 μm, one had a corresponding bright line length of 370 μm. Based on this line length, the calculated depth of origin was about midway in the epilayer, while all of the other carrots originated from the substrate. In summary, both EL and PL techniques were consistent in showing that carrots exhibit variable defect structures on a microscopic scale.