The effects of the oxidation atmosphere and crystal faces on the interface-trap density was examined by using constant-capacitance deep-level transient spectroscopy to clarify the origin of them. By comparing the DLTS spectra of the low-mobility interfaces oxidized in a N 2 O atmosphere with those of the high-mobility interfaces on C-face oxidized in a wet atmosphere, it was found that a high density of traps are commonly observed around the energy of 0.16 eV from the edge of the conduction band (C1 traps) in low-mobility interfaces irrespective of crystal faces. It was also found that the generation and elimination of traps specific to crystal faces: (1) the C1 traps can be eliminated by wet oxidation only on the C-face, and (2) the O2 traps (0.37 eV) can be observed in the SiC/SiO 2 interface only on the Si-face. The generation of O2 traps on the Si-face and the elimination of C1 traps on the C-face by wet oxidation may be caused by the oxidation reaction specific to the crystal faces. * tetsuo-hatakeyama@aist.go.jp 1 I. INTRODUCTION SiC metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) are regarded as promising candidates for the next-generation high-voltage electrical power switches owing to the high critical electric field of SiC [1-3]. However, the low mobility in the SiC/SiO 2 interfaces hinders the potential performance of SiC MOSFETs. Thus, the improvement in the mobility in the SiC/SiO 2 interfaces is a central issue in the research and development of SiC MOSFETs. It was presumed that the traps in the SiC/SiO 2 interfaces are closely related to the degradation in mobility [4]. In 2000, Saks and Agarwal clearly showed that the low mobility in the SiC/SiO 2 interfaces is caused by the trapping of electrons at the highdensity interface traps on the bases of the Hall effect measurements of SiC MOSFETs[5].They showed that most of the inversion electrons induced by the gate voltage were trapped by interface traps by comparing the free carrier density in an interface obtained by Hall measurements with the total number of inversion electrons. They also pointed out that the Coulombic scattering by the trapped electrons may dominate the inversion electron transport by examining the temperature dependence of the Hall mobility. Later, detailed studies on the inversion electron transport of various types of SiC MOSFETs using Hall measurements confirmed the above-described degradation mechanism in mobility [6,7]. Therefore, great efforts have been focused on reducing the interface trap density to improve mobility by examining the gate-oxidation and post-gate-oxidation annealing processes in detail. In recent years, annealing or oxidation in a nitric oxide (NO) or nitrous oxide (N 2 O) atmosphere, which is hereinafter collectively referred to as oxynitridation, has been used to reduce the high density of interface traps [8][9][10]. The optimized oxynitridation process reduces the interface trap density (D it ) evaluated by using the conventional Hi-Lo method [11] down to less than 10 12 cm −2 /eV at E C − E...