Investigation of electron-hole recombination-activated partial dislocations and their behavior in 4H-SiC epitaxial layers

Electron-hole recombination-activated partial dislocations in 4H silicon carbide homoepitaxial layers and their behavior have been studied using synchrotron X-ray topography and electroluminescence. Stacking faults whose expansion was activated by electron-hole recombination enhanced dislocation gli...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of electronic materials 2008-05, Vol.37 (5 ; May 2008)
Main Authors: Chen, Y., Zhang, N., Dudley, M., Caldwell, J.D., Liu, K.X., Stahlbush, R.E., Huang, X., Macrander, A.T., Black, D.R., X-Ray Science Division, Stony Brook Univ, Naval Research Lab, NIST
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
DIPOLES
DISLOCATIONS
ELECTROLUMINESCENCE
PARTICLE ACCELERATORS
RECOMBINATION
SCREW DISLOCATIONS
SILICON CARBIDES
SIMULATION
STACKING FAULTS
SYNCHROTRONS
TOPOGRAPHY
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Summary:Electron-hole recombination-activated partial dislocations in 4H silicon carbide homoepitaxial layers and their behavior have been studied using synchrotron X-ray topography and electroluminescence. Stacking faults whose expansion was activated by electron-hole recombination enhanced dislocation glide were observed to be bounded by partial dislocations, which appear as white stripes or narrow dark lines in back-reflection X-ray topographs recorded using the basal plane reflections. Such contrast variations are attributable to the defocusing/focusing of the diffracted X-rays due to the edge component of the partial dislocations, which creates a convex/concave distortion of the basal planes. Simulation results based on the ray-tracing principle confirm our argument. Observations also indicate that, when an advancing partial dislocation interacts with a threading screw dislocation, a partial dislocation dipole is dragged behind in its wake. This partial dislocation dipole is able to advance regardless of the immobility of the C-core segment. A kink pushing mechanism is introduced to interpret the advancement of this partial dislocation dipole.
ISSN:0361-5235
1543-186X
DOI:10.1007/s11664-007-0328-9