Electrical Properties and Electroluminescence of 4H-SiC p-n Junction Diodes

Homoepitaxial growth of 4H-SiC on off-oriented Si-face(0001 ) substrates was performed by using the step-controlled epitaxy technique in a newly developed low-pressure hot-wall CVD (LP-HWCVD) system with a horizontal aircooled quartz tube at around 1500 ℃and 1.33 × 104 Pa by employing SiH4 + C2H4 + H2. In-situ doping during growth was carried out by adding NH3 gas into the precursor gases. It was shown that the maximum Hall mobility of the undoped 4H-SiC epilayers at room temperature is about 430 cm2 ·V -1 ·s -1 with a carrier concentration of ～ 1016 cm-3 and the highest carrier concentration of the N-doped 4H-SiC epilayer obtained at NH3 flow rate of 3 sccm is about 2.7 × 1021 cm-3 with a mobility of 0.75 cm2 ·V -1 ·S -1. SiC p-n junctions were obtained by epitaxially growing N-doped 4H-SiC epilayers on Aldoped 4H-SiC substrates. The C-V characteristics of the diodes were linear in the 1/C3-V coordinates indicating that the obtained p-n junctions were graded with a built-in voltage of 2.7 eV. The room temperature electroluminescence spectra of 4H-SiC p-n junctions are studied as a function of forward current. The D-A pair recombination due to nitrogen donors and the unintentional, deep boron center is dominant at low forward bias, while the D-A pair recombination due to nitrogen donors and aluminum acceptors are dominant at higher forward biases. The p-n junctions could operate at temperature of up to 400 ℃, which provides a potential for high-temperature applications.