Papers by Author: Anne Henry

Abstract: A set of lines in the photoluminescence spectra of 4H-, 6H-, and 15R-SiC in the near-infrared are attributed to Nb-related defects on the ground of doping experiments conducted with 4H-SiC. A model based on a an exciton bound at the Nb-centre in an asymmetric split vacancy configuration at a hexagonal site is proposed, which explains the structure of the luminescence spectrum and the observed Zeeman splitting of the lines.

Abstract: Epitaxial growth of 4H-SiC on 8º off-axis substrates has been performed under different condition during the temperature ramp up in order to study the effect on the carrot defect. The study was done in a hot wall chemical vapor deposition reactor using the single molecule precursor methyltrichlorosilane (MTS). During the temperature ramp up, a small flow of HCl or C2H4 was added to the H2 ambient to study different surface etching conditions. The best result was obtained when HCl was added from 1175 to 1520 °C during the ramp up to growth temperature (1575 °C).

Abstract: The effects of post fabrication annealing on the electrical characteristics of n-ZnO/p-Si heterostructure are studied. The nanorods of ZnO are grown by aqueous chemical growth (ACG) technique on p-Si substrate and ohmic contacts of Al/Pt and Al are made on ZnO and Si. The devices are annealed at 400 and 600 °C in air, oxygen and nitrogen ambient. The characteristics are studied by photoluminescence (PL), current–voltage (I-V) and capacitance - voltage (C-V) measurements. PL spectra indicated higher ultraviolet (UV) to visible emission ratio with a strong peak of near band edge emission (NBE) centered from 375-380 nm and very weak broad deep-level emissions (DLE) centered from 510-580 nm. All diodes show typical non linear rectifying behavior as characterized by I-V measurements. The results indicated that annealing in air and oxygen resulted in better electrical characteristics with a decrease in the reverse current.

Abstract: Both 3C and 6H stacking faults have been observed in a low doped 4H-SiC epitaxial layer grown in a hot-wall CVD reactor on a heavily doped (off-axis) 4H-SiC substrate. They appear differently on the different parts of sample, with energetic dispersion ranging from 3.01 eV to 2.52 eV. Since they behave as natural type-II quantum wells in the 4H-SiC matrix, the thickness dependence of the excitonic recombination is investigated using the standard effective mass approximation. The results are discussed in terms of built-in electric field and inter-well coupling effects.

Abstract: DLTS measurements show bistable behavior of the previously reported EH5 peak in low- and high-energy electron irradiation 4H-SiC. Both reconfiguration processes (A ! B and B ! A) take place above 700 ±C. By isothermal annealing, the reconfiguration rates were determined and the reconfiguration energy was calculated to EA = 2.4±0.2 eV. Since the defect is present already after low-energy electron irradiation, which mainly affects the C atom in SiC, the EH5 peak may be related to defects associated with C-vacancies or C-interstitials

Abstract: The analysis of the donor-acceptor pair luminescence of P-Al and N-Al pairs obtained recently for the cubic 3C polytype of SiC is viewed in some detail. A detailed consideration is given to the fitting procedure applied to the P-Al and N-Al spectra. Fit with theoretical models of spectra of type I and type II are applied to both N-Al and P-Al experimental spectra, and it is demonstrated that only contribution from P on Si site is observable in the presented samples. The accuracy of the obtained phosphorus ionization energy of 48.1 meV is also discussed.

Abstract: The effect of different C/Si ratio on the surface morphology has been studied to optimize the on-axis homoepitaxial growth conditions on 4H-SiC substrates to improve the surface roughness of epilayers. The overall surface roughness is found to decrease with decreasing C/Si ratio. An order of magnitude lower surface roughness has been observed using C/Si ratio = 0.8 without disturbing the polytype stability in the epilayer. A high growth rate of 10 µm/h was achieved without introducing 3C inclusions. The epilayers grown at higher growth rate with C/Si ratio = 1 also had improvements in the surface roughness. 100% 4H polytype was maintained in the epilayers grown with C/Si ratio in the range of 1.2 to 0.8 and with high growth rate of 10 µm/h.

Abstract: A chloride-based chemical-vapor-deposition (CVD) process has been successfully used to grow very high quality 3C-SiC epitaxial layers on on-axis α-SiC substrates. An accurate process parameters study was performed testing the effect of temperature, in situ surface preparation, precursor ratios, nitrogen addition, and substrate polytype and polarity. The 3C layers deposited showed to be largely single-domain material of very high purity and of excellent electrical characteristics. A growth rate of up to 10 µm/h and a low background doping enable deposition of epitaxial layers suitable for MOSFET devices.

Abstract: The epitaxial growth at 100 µm/h on on-axis 4H-SiC substrates is demonstrated in this study. Chloride-based CVD, which has been shown to be a reliable process to grow SiC epitaxial layers at rates above 100 µm/h on off-cut substrates, was combined with silane in-situ etching. A proper tuning of C/Si and Cl/Si ratios and the combination of different chlorinated precursors resulted in the homoepitaxial growth of 4H-SiC on Si-face substrates at high rates. Methyltrichlorosilane, added with silane, ethylene and hydrogen chloride were employed as precursors to perform epitaxial growths resulting in very low background doping concentration and high quality material, which could be employed for power devices structure on basal-plane-dislocation-free epitaxial layers.

Abstract: After low-energy electron irradiation of epitaxial n-type 4H-SiC, the DLTS peak amplitudes of the defects Z1/2 and EH6/7, which were already observed in as-grown layers, increased and the commonly found peaks EH1 and EH3 appeared. The bistable M-center, previously seen in high-energy proton implanted 4H-SiC, was detected. New bistable defects, the EB-centers, evolved after annealing out of the M-center, EH1 and EH3. The reconfiguration energies for one of the two EB-centers were determined to be about 0.96 eV for both transitions: from configuration I to II and from configuration II to I. Since low-energy electron irradiation (<220 keV) affects mainly the carbon atom in SiC, both the M- and EB-centers are likely to be carbon related defects.