Doping of silicon carbide by ion implantation

It appeared that in some fields, as the hostile environments (high temperature or irradiation), the silicon compounds showed limitations resulting from the electrical and mechanical properties. Doping of 4H and 6H silicon carbide by ion implantation is studied from a physicochemical and electrical point of view. It is necessary to obtain n-type and p-type material to realize high power and/or high frequency devices, such as MESFETs and Schottky diodes. First, physical and electrical properties of silicon carbide are presented and the interest of developing a process technology on this material is emphasised. Then, physical characteristics of ion implantation and particularly classical dopant implantation, such as nitrogen, for n-type doping, and aluminium and boron, for p-type doping are described. Results with these dopants are presented and analysed. Optimal conditions are extracted from these experiences so as to obtain a good crystal quality and a surface state allowing device fabrication. Electrical conduction is then described in the 4H and 6H-SiC polytypes. Freezing of free carriers and scattering processes are described. Electrical measurements are carried out using Hall effect on Van der Panw test patterns, and 4 point probe method are used to draw the type of the material, free carrier concentrations, resistivity and mobility of the implanted doped layers. These results are commented and compared to the theoretical analysis. The influence of the technological process on electrical conduction is studied in view of fabricating implanted silicon carbide devices. (author)