SiC Materials and Technologies for Sensors Development

Silicon Carbide has proven its strong interest for power and high frequency devices but it also has superior characteristics for application in the sensors and MEMS fields. The characteristic requirements of the starting material are different from that of power devices since the level of defects is not so critical while the layer stress is important especially in 3C-SiC on Si. The keyprocess for MEMS fabrication is the etching, which is progressing thanks to ICP process improvements. A perfect control of the etching step could allow the obtention of nano-resonators in SiC with fairly superior characteristics to the Si ones. Other electrical sensors for high temperature application such as gas sensors or Hall sensors have been also successfully developed taking profit of the deep etching process improvement and high temperature contact developments.