Growth of 4H-SiC recombination-enhancing buffer layer with Ti and N co-doping and improvement of forward voltage stability of PiN diodes

Abstract

“Bipolar degradation” phenomenon has severely impeded the development of 4H-SiC bipolar devices. Their defect mechanism is the expansion of Shockley-type stacking faults from basal plane dislocations under the condition of electron-hole recombination. To suppress the “bipolar degradation” phenomenon, not only do the basal plane dislocations in the 4H-SiC drift layer need eliminating, but also a recombination-enhancing buffer layer is required to prevent the minority carriers of holes from reaching the epilayer/substrate interface where high-density basal plane dislocation segments exist. In this paper, Ti and N co-doped 4H-SiC buffer layers are grown to further shorten the minority carrier lifetime. Firstly, the dependence of Ti doping concentration on TiCl₄ flow rate in 4H-SiC epilayers is determined by using single-dilution gas line and double-dilution gas line. Then the p⁺ layer and p⁺⁺ layer in PiN diode are obtained by aluminum ion implantation at room temperature and 500 ℃ followed by high temperature activation annealing. Finally, 4H-SiC PiN diodes with a Ti, N co-doped buffer layer are fabricated and tested with a forward current density of 100 A/cm² for 10 min. Comparing with the PiN diodes without a buffer layer and with a buffer layer only doped with high concentration of nitrogen, the forward voltage drop stability of those diodes with a 2 μm-thick Ti, N co-doped buffer layer (Ti: 3.70 × 10¹⁵ cm^–3 and N: 1.01 × 10¹⁹ cm^–3) is greatly improved.