Investigation of 4H-SiC Schottky barrier diodes irradiated with 6 MeV Au ions at low temperature

Abstract The change in the electrical properties of 4H-SiC Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs) irradiated by 6 MeV Au ions at low temperature (LT) is investigated. The SBDs are characterized by current–voltage (I-V) and capacitance–voltage (C-V). The SRIM software is used to calculate the Au ion transportation process. The experimental results indicate that the ideality factor (n) and the reverse leakage current (IR) increase, and Schottky barrier height (SBH) decreases with the increase in fluence. It is found that series resistance (RS) and effective impurity concentration (ND) are recovered at 5 × 1015 ions/cm2. Calculation results show that the mental layer can prevent most of the Au ions, while the secondary particles will enter the SiC layer. Therefore, these results demonstrate that the secondary particles induce many defects at the metal-SiC interface and the SiC epitaxial layer after LT heavy ion (HI) irradiation.