Time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) measurement of MOS capacitors on an n-type 4 ° off-axis 4H-SiC(0001) wafer free from step-bunching showed specific breakdown in the Weibull distribution plots. By observing the as-grown SiC-epi wafer surface, two kinds of epitaxial surface defect, Trapezoid-shape and Bar-shape defects, were confirmed with confocal microscope. Charge to breakdown (Qbd) of MOS capacitors including an upstream line of these defects is almost the same value as that of a Wear-out breakdown region. On the other hand, the gate oxide breakdown of MOS capacitors occurred at a downstream line. It has revealed that specific part of these defects causes degradation of oxide reliability. Cross-sectional TEM images of MOS structure show that gate oxide thickness of MOS capacitor is non-uniform on the downstream line. Moreover, AFM observation of as-grown and oxidized SiC-epitaxial surfaces indicated that surface roughness of downstream line becomes 3-4 times larger than the as-grown one by oxidation process.

We have found undiscovered defects on a 4H-SiC epitaxial layer, the shape of which resembles a scraper in images taken by confocal differential interference contrast optical microscopy. The surface morphological structure and formation mechanism of the scraper-shaped defects were investigated by atomic force microscopy and grazing incidence monochromatic synchrotron X-ray topography, respectively. The scraper-shaped defects were surface morphological defects consisting of surface asperity and were caused by the migration of interfacial dislocations. The evaluation of the thermal oxide reliability of metal–oxide–semiconductor capacitors fabricated on these defects was performed by time-dependent dielectric breakdown measurement. The degradation of thermal oxide occurred only on the downstream line of the scraper-shaped defects. The thickness of the oxide layer on these defects was also investigated using cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy.

We measured Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) and cathodoluminescence (CL) spectra of SiO2 films with a various thickness, grown on 4H-SiC substrates. The peak frequency of the transverse optical (TO) phonon mode was blue-shifted by about 5 cm−1 as the oxide-layer thickness decreased from 50-60 nm to 10 nm. The blue shift of the TO mode is considerd to be caused by interfacial compressive stresses in the oxide-layer. On the other hand, the TO phonon mode was found to dramatically decrease as the oxide-layer thickness decreased from 10 nm to 1.7 nm. The CL measurement indicates that the intensity of the CL peaks at about 460 and 490 nm attributed to oxygen vacancy centers (OVCs) for No.2 become stronger than that for No.1. From a comparison between FT-IR and CL measurements, we concluded that the red-shift of the TO phonon with decreasing the oxide-layer thickness can mainly be attributed to an increase in inhomogeneity at the SiO2/SiC interface with decreasing oxide-layer thickness.

With regard to Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy (SIMS) measurement of atmospheric gas elements, a problem occurs that the detected signal includes background components caused by residual gas along with contained components. Relating to this issue, an available method to quantify the contained components by separating the background ones had been established for Dynamic SIMS. Time‐of‐Flight SIMS with sputtering ion gun has also applied for depth profiling as well as Dynamic SIMS. However, few studies have attempted to investigate the secondary ion behavior of the atmospheric gas elements for depth profiling by Time‐of‐flight SIMS, especially for low concentration levels. In this study, experimental examinations of the secondary ions of the atmospheric gas elements, such as oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon in the silicon substrate, has been conducted in various analytical conditions of TOF‐SIMS depth profiling mode. Under the analytical conditions of our study, it has been proved that the background intensity of these elements was correlated to the sputtering rate. For the analysis of Floating Zone Silicon substrate, the oxygen intensity of the background component was proportional to the inverse number of the sputtering rate. Based on these facts, the total detected intensity of the atmospheric gas elements was able to be separated into the contained components and background ones by changing the sputtering rate during TOF‐SIMS measurement. An experimental result has shown that the contained oxygen concentration in the Czochralsk Silicon substrate estimated by the “TOF‐SIMS Raster Change Method” has successfully agreed with the result by the Dynamic SIMS.

TOF-SIMS with MS/MS was applied to degradation analyses of OLEDs. Photoluminescence and GCIB-TOF-SIMS revealed a degraded layer and molecular weights of degradation products. MS/MS by TOF-SIMS gave more detailed structural information of degradation products than conventional TOF-SIMS, which demonstrated effectiveness of TOF-SIMS with MS/MS for degradation analyses of OLEDs.