Radiation damage and annealing behaviour of Ge+ -implanted SiC

In recent years, single crystal SiC has become an important electronic material due to its excellent physical and chemical properties. The present paper reports a study of the defect reduction and recrystallization during annealing of Ge+-implanted 6H-SiC. Implants have been performed at 200 keV with doses of 1x1014 and 1x1015 cm-2. Furnace annealing has been carried out at temperatures of 500 °C, 950 °C and 1500 °C. Three analytical techniques including Rutherford backscattering spectrometry in conjunction with channelling (RBS/C), positron annihilation spectroscopy (PAS) and cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy (XTEM) have been employed for sample characterization. It has been shown that damage removal is more complicated than in ion-implanted Si. The recrystallization of amorphized SiC layers has been found to be unsatisfactory for temperatures up to 1500 °C. The use of ionbeam-induced epitaxial crystallization (IBIEC) has been more successfull as lattice regrowth, altough still imperfect, has been observed to occur at a temperature as low as 500 °C.