Silicon carbide and related materials 2009 : selected peer reviewed papers from the International Conference on Silicon Carbide and Related Materials 2009, Nurnberg, Germany, October 11-16, 2009

The 13th International Conference on Silicon Carbide and Related Materials 2009 (ICSCRM 2009) was held at the Congress Center, Nurnberg (CCN), Germany from October 11 to 16, 2009. This was a truly important and exciting event in the history of wide-bandgap semiconductors, as 503 scientists and engineers from 29 countries reported and discussed the progress made during the previous two years. These Proceedings reflect the present knowledge and industrial experience concerning the growth of bulk crystals and epitaxial layers, the physical properties of grown semiconductors as well as advances made in the processing and fabrication of SiC high-power devices. The technical program consisted of 331 contributed, and 28 invited, papers. It was noted that because micropipes could now be almost completely suppressed in SiC wafers, extended defects such as dislocations or stacking faults had become the target as sources of degradation of device performance. The development and fabrication of high-power devices and systems for industrial applications was also a hot topic. Another extremely exciting topic was that of graphene grown onto SiC. Two plenary sessions presented a survey of the basic physical properties and processing of SiC and of the industrial potential of components based upon SiC; being highlights of the conference. The commercial aspects of SiC technology were also not forgotten. These proceedings therefore represent a timely and very up-to-date overview of the subject.