Non-Micropipe Dislocations in 4H-SiC Devices: Electrical Properties and Device Technology Implications

It is well-known that SiC wafer quality deficiencies are delaying the realization of outstandingly superior 4H-SiC power electronics. While efforts to date have centered on eradicating micropipes (i.e., hollow core super-screw dislocations with Burgers vectors > 2c), 4H-SiC wafers and epilayers also contain elementary screw dislocations (i.e., Burgers vector = lc with no hollow core) in densities on the order of thousands per cm 2, nearly 100-fold micropipe densities. While not nearly as detrimental to SiC device performance as micropipes, it has been previously shown that diodes containing elementary screw dislocations exhibit a 5% to 35% reduction in breakdown voltage, higher pre-breakdown reverse leakage current, softer reverse breakdown I-V knee, and concentrated microplasmic breakdown current filaments when measured under DC testing conditions. This paper details the impact of elementary screw dislocations on the experimentally observed reverse-breakdown pulse-failure characteristics of low-voltage (< 250 V) small-area (< 5 × 10-4 cm2) 4H-SiC p+n diodes. The presence of elementary screw dislocations did not significantly affect the failure properties of these diodes when subjected to non-adiabatic breakdown-bias pulsewidths ranging from 0.1 μs to 20 μs in duration. Diodes with and without elementary screw dislocations exhibited positive temperature coefficient of breakdown voltage and high junction failure power densities well above the failure power densities exhibited by highly reliable silicon power rectifiers. This preliminary result, based on measurements from one wafer of SiC diodes, suggests that highly reliable low-voltage SiC rectifiers may be attainable despite the presence of elementary screw dislocations.