Thermal stability of irradiation-induced point defects in cubic silicon carbide

This work aims specifically at studying the evolution of point defects induced by electron irradiation in the cubic polytype of SiC (3C-SiC) at temperatures ranging from 10 to 1450 K by means of photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. We identified a first annealing stage between 200 and 245 K, which probably results from migration of interstitials in the carbon sublattice. Moreover, we confirmed the high thermal stability of defect-related PL signals up to about 1100 K and calculated the activation energies associated with their annihilation. Finally, we studied the effect of a high temperature treatment at 1400 K on the DI center PL intensity in a single-crystal sample irradiated by electrons below the threshold displacement energy of the silicon sublattice. This allows checking the relevance of recent defect models based upon the migration of atoms in the carbon sublattice during the irradiation process. We conclude that the DI center does not involve the silicon vacancy and could be assigned to an isolated silicon antisite SiC.