materialscloud:2020.0022

Authors: Dipanwita Dutta^1*, Deb Sankar De², Daniel Fan¹, Shantanu Roy², Giovanni Alfieri³, Massimo Camarda¹, Maximilian Amsler⁴, Joerg Lehmann³, Holger Bartolf³, Stefan Goedecker², Thomas Andreas Jung^1*

1. Laboratory for Micro and Nanotechnology, Paul Scherrer Institute, CH-5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland
2. Departement of Physics, University of Basel, CH-4056 Basel, Switzerland
3. ABB Switzerland Ltd., Corporate Research, CH-5405 Baden-Dättwil, Switzerland
4. Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA

DOI10.24435/materialscloud:2020.0022/v1 (version v1, submitted on 20 February 2020)

High power SiC MOSFET technologies are critical for energy saving in, e.g., distribution of electrical power. They suffer, however, from low near-interface mobility, the origin of which has not yet been conclusively determined. Here, we present unique concerting evidence for the presence of interface defects in the form of carbon clusters at native thermally processed oxides of SiC. These clusters, with a diameter of 2–5 nm, are HF-etch resistant and possess a mixture of graphitic (sp2) and amorphous (sp3 mixed in sp2) carbon bonds different from the normal sp3 carbon present in 4H-SiC. The nucleation of such defects during thermal oxidation as well as their atomic structure is elucidated by state-of-the-art atomistic and electronic structure calculations. In addition, our property prediction techniques show the impact of the simulated carbon accumulates on the electronic structure at the interface.

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v1: 20 February 2020 [This version]