Fabrication and characterization of 4H-SiC P-N junction diodes by selective-epitaxial growth using TaC as the mask

Abstract

Selective nitrogen doping of 4H-SiC by epitaxial growth using TaC as the high-temperature mask has been demonstrated. Nomarski optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to characterize selective growth of SiC. In addition, 250-µm, square-shaped, p-n junction diodes by selective n-type epitaxial growth on a p-type epilayer were fabricated. The refilled fingers with different width were designed to vary the periphery/area (P/A) ratio. The effects of P/A ratio on the current-voltage (J-V) characteristics have been investigated. The ideality factor extracted from J-V characteristics is ≈2 at a temperature range of 25–275°C, which indicates that the Shockley-Read-Hall recombination is the dominant mechanism in the conduction region. The reverse leakage current does not show dependence on P/A ratio for trench-refilled diodes. The room-temperature reverse leakage-current density at 100 V is less than 3.5×10⁻⁷ A/cm² for all diodes. Also, the reverse leakage current does not increase significantly with temperature up to 275°C. The breakdown voltages measured at room temperature are about 450 V and 400 V for diodes without and with fingers, respectively.