Defect Level of the Carbon Vacancy-Carbon Antisite Pair Center in SI 4H SiC

Abstract

The understanding of the structure and associated defect level of point defects in SiC is important because the material is to be used both as a semiconductor and semi-insulator. Production of the latter is achieved by compensation of unavoidable impurities using defects that require more energy for ionization than the unintentional donors or acceptors. The purpose of the present work is to measure the defect energy level of one center in high resistivity 4H SiC using photo-induced electron paramagnetic resonance (photo-EPR). The center is identified as SI-5, an EPR signal that others have attributed to the negative charge state of the carbon vacancy-carbon antisite pair, − C Si V C . Samples containing this defect exhibit two different photo thresholds, which depend on the resistivity activation energy, Ea. For samples with Ea less than 0.8 eV, a photothreshold at 0.75+/- 0.05 eV is observed, but for those with Ea greater than 0.8 eV, the threshold is between 2 and 2.5 eV. Previous work focused on the former case. Here, the SiC substrates with the larger Ea are emphasized, showing that the photo-threshold likely measures the neutral to negative defect level, − / 0 C Si V C .