Secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) are utilized to study precipitation and the solubility of B in 4H-SiC epitaxial layers super saturated with B. Heat treatments are performed in Ar atmosphere in an rf-heated furnace at temperatures between 1700 and 2000 degrees C. SIMS ion images, and TEM micrographs reveal the formation of two types of precipitates where the larger, more thermally stable one is suggested to be B4C. The boron solubility is determined from SIMS depth profiles and is shown to follow the Arrhenius expression: 7.1 x 10(22) exp(-1.4 eV/k(B)T) cm(-3) over the studied temperature range.

The thermal stability of the passivating hydrogen-aluminum complex ((HAl)-H-2) in 4H-silicon carbide has been studied by determining the effective diffusion constant for hydrogen in an AI-doped epitaxial layer. Assuming a complex comprised of one H-2 and one AI acceptor ion, the extracted diffusivities provide the dissociation frequency of the complex. The extracted frequencies cover three orders of magnitude and yield a close to perfect fit to an Arrhenius equation with the extracted dissociation energy for the (HAl)-H-2-complex equal to 1.66 (+/-0.05) eV and a pre-exponential attempt frequency nu (0) = 1.7x10(13) s(-1) in good agreement with the expected value for a first order dissociation process.

We have applied scanning capacitance microscopy (SCM) to investigate SIC structures grown by vapour-phase epitaxy. The SCM technique is evaluated using n- and p-type doping staircase structures with doping concentrations ranging from 10(16) to 10(20) cm(-3). The n- and p-type doping was obtained by doping SiC with nitrogen and aluminium, respectively. The sample cross-sections for SCM were obtained by simple cleaving. For doping levels above 10(17) cm(-3) the SCM data are consistent with doping data obtained independently from secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS). Treating the samples with diluted hydrofluoric acid significantly improves the SCM signal for the low-doped regions. The SCM technique has been used to investigate doping redistribution in patterned regrowth of n- and p-type SIC around dry-etched mesas. In both cases, contrast variations were seen close to the mesa walls, indicative of doping variations; lower and higher incorporation for p- and n-type, respectively. The observations are shown to be consistent with the expected trends in dopant incorporation in the SiC material.

The diffusion of deuterium (H-2) in epitaxial 4H-SiC layers with buried highly Al-acceptor doped regions has been studied by secondary ion mass spectrometry. H-2 was introduced in the near surface region by the use of 20-keV implantation after which the samples were thermally annealed. As a result, an anomalous accumulation of H-2 in the high doped layers was observed. To explain the accumulation kinetics, a model is proposed where positively charged H-2 ions are driven into the high doped layer and become trapped there by the strong electric field at the edges. This effect is important for other semiconductors as well, since hydrogen is a common impurity present at high concentrations in many semiconductors.

In this work we present for the first time, to our knowledge, the CVD epitaxial growth of β-SiC using an ion beam synthesized (IBS) β-SiC layer as seed, which has been formed by multiple implantation into Si wafers at 500 °C. The ion beam synthesized continuous layer is constituted by β-SiC nanocrystals that are well oriented relative to the silicon substrate. Comparison of the epitaxial growth on these samples with that on silicon test samples, both on and off-axis, is performed. The results show that the epitaxial growth can be achieved on the IBS samples without the need of the carbonization step and that the structural quality of the CVD layer is comparable to that obtained on a carbonized silicon sample. Improvement of the quality of the deposited layer is proposed.

Experimental evidence is given for transient enhanced diffusion of boron (B) in ion-implanted silicon carbide (SiC). The implanted B is diffusing several mu m into the samples when annealed at 1600 and 1700 degrees C for 10 min, but the in-diffused tails remain unaffected when the annealing times are increased to 30 min at the same temperatures. A lower limit of the effective B diffusivity at 1600 degrees C is determined to 7x10(-12) cm(2)/s, which is 160 times larger than the equilibrium B diffusivity given in the literature.

Deuterium and lithium were introduced in p-type SiC by implantation of 20 keV H-2(+) or 30 keV Li-7(+) ions in order to form a diffusion source. The samples were subsequently annealed in vacuum in the temperature range 400-700 degrees C for 0.25 to 16 h. Secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) was used to measure the deuterium and the lithium distribution after heat treatments. Both deuterium and lithium readily decorate the bombardment-induced defects in the vicinity of the ion implantation profile and they are also trapped, most likely by residual boron impurities, during diffusion into the bulk. An effective diffusion coefficient, reflecting the dissociation of trapped lithium, with an activation energy of 2.1 eV is extracted for lithium diffusion in p-type 6H SIG. Furthermore, a capture radius for trapping (most likely by boron) of deuterium is estimated as 10 Angstrom. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.