Glide velocities of Si-core partial dislocations for double-Shockley stacking fault expansion in heavily nitrogen-doped SiC during high-temperature annealing.

We investigated the glide velocities of 30° Si-core partial dislocations for the expansion of double-Shockley stacking faults (DSFs) in heavily nitrogen-doped 4H-SiC crystals at high temperatures of approximately 1000 °C. The heavily doped epilayers grown by chemical vapor deposition were successively annealed. The expansion of DSFs in the heavily doped epilayers was tracked by a photoluminescence (PL) imaging technique. From the PL images obtained after each annealing treatment, the glide velocities of the 30° Si-core partial dislocations were estimated. In particular, temperature dependence and nitrogen-concentration dependence of the dislocation velocities were obtained. We also report the influence of the strain energies of the bounding dislocations on the velocities. Based on the experimental results, the quantitative expression of the dislocation glide is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]