Investigation of defects in N-type 4H-silicon carbide and semi-insulating 6H-silicon carbide using photoluminescence spectroscopy

Photoluminescence spectroscopy is one of the most efficient and sensitive non-contact techniques used to investigate defects in SiC. In this work, room temperature photoluminescence mapping is employed to identify different defects that influence material properties. The correlation of the distribution of these defects in n-type 4H-SiC substrates with electronic properties of SiC revealed connection between the deep levels acting as efficient recombination centers and doping in the substrate. Since deep levels are known to act as minority carrier lifetime killers, the obtained knowledge may contribute to our ability to control important characteristics such as minority carrier lifetime in SiC. In semi-insulating (SI) 6H-SIC, the correlation between room temperature infrared photoluminescence maps and the resistivity maps is used to identify deep defects responsible for semi-insulating behavior of the material. Different defects were found to be important in different families of SI SiC substrates, with often more than one type of defect playing a significant role. The obtained knowledge is expected to enhance the yield of SI SiC fabrication and the homogeneity of the resistivity distribution across the area of large SIC substrates.