A comparative study of the radiation hardness of silicon carbide using light ions

Abstract 6H-silicon carbide (SiC) schottky diodes were irradiated at room temperature (RT) with proton, alpha and carbon particles to fluences in the range of 10 8 –10 13 ions/cm 2 . Both radiative and non-radiative traps are generated due to damage caused by the incident ions. Ionluminescence performed at RT revealed that radiative traps with photon emission energy of 2.32 eV appear after radiation. Electroluminescence measurement indicated that at RT the influence of non-radiative defects dominated over the radiative ones. Ion beam induced charge collection was used to investigate the charge collection efficiency of these diodes. Reduction in the charge pulse height is compared with calculation of non-ionising energy loss (NIEL). NIEL is a good measure of the displacement damage introduced in SiC materials by ionising particles. There is no significant difference in the radiation hardness of n-type and p-type 6H-SiC schottky diodes when irradiated with 2 MeV alpha particles.