Development of basic design rules and the evaluation of novel design structures for high power silicon carbide diodes through device simulation

Practical design of high power SiC Schottky rectifiers requires an understanding of the relationships among device structure, material properties and performance. Simulation can be used to examine novel structures quickly and cost effectively. Experimental work can be focused on the optimization of the most promising designs. Simulation also gives insight into the physics of the device that is difficult to obtain experimentally. Potential and electric field distributions, current density distributions and effects of temperature are just a few of outputs available from device simulation tools.; This dissertation examines several novel Schottky diode structures: Schottky diode with field plate, integrated Schottky diodes, the MOS-Schottky diode and the CSD-Schottky diode (Schottky diode with current spreading dots). This dissertation also briefly examines SiC pin diodes for microwave limiting applications.; The semi-empirical approach to simulation is used throughout this work. Simple diode structures are used to test and calibrate the simulation software to experimental results. The calibrated models are then extended to more complicated structures for which performance predictions are made. Wherever possible, the goal is to reduce the simulation predictions to design rules that link observable quantities to structure parameters.