Accumulation and recovery of irradiation effects in silicon carbide

Single crystals of 6H-SiC have been irradiated with a variety of ions over a wide range of fluences and temperatures. The temperature dose dependence of damage accumulation has been investigated using in-situ Rutherford Backscattering Spectrometry in channeling geometry. At low temperatures, the accumulation of structural disorder exhibits a sigmoidal dependence on dose. At room temperature and higher, simultaneous recovery processes during irradiation significantly reduce the damage accumulation rates by up to a factor of five. Isochronal and isothermal annealing studies have been used to study the damage recovery behavior. For low defect concentrations introduced by 550 keV Si+ irradiation at 160 K, complete recovery is observed at 300 K. However, defects introduced by He+ irradiation on the Si sublattice are more difficult to anneal at room temperature, which suggests trapping of the implanted helium may inhibit defect recombination. Below room temperature, the thermal recovery of defects on the Si sublattice has an activation energy on the order of 0.3 ± 0.1 eV. Defect recovery above 570 K has an activation energy on the order of 1.5 ± 0.3 eV