High-Mobility SiC MOSFETs with Alkaline Earth Interface Passivation

TLDR: In this article, the authors used the high-low C-V technique to measure the interface state density (DIT) of the SiO2/SiC interface layer and showed that the Ba interface layer results in lower DIT than that of samples with nitric oxide passivation.

Abstract: Alkaline earth elements Sr and Ba provide SiO2/SiC interface conditions suitable for obtaining high channel mobility metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect-transistors (MOSFETs) on the Si-face (0001) of 4H-SiC, without the standard nitric oxide (NO) anneal. The alkaline earth elements Sr and Ba located at/near the SiO2/SiC interface result in field-effect mobility (μFE) values as high as 65 and 110 cm2/V.s, respectively, on 5×1015 cm-3 Al-doped p-type SiC. As the SiC doping increases, peak mobility decreases as expected, but the peak mobility remains higher for Ba interface layer (Ba IL) devices compared to NO annealed devices. The Ba IL MOSFET field-effect mobility decreases as the temperature is increased to 150 °C, as expected when mobility is phonon-scattering-limited, not interface-trap-limited. This is in agreement with measurements of the interface state density (DIT) using the high-low C-V technique, indicating that the Ba IL results in lower DIT than that of samples with nitric oxide passivation. Vertical power MOSFET (DMOSFET) devices (1200V, 15A) fabricated with the Ba IL have a 15% lower on-resistance compared to devices with NO passivation. The DMOSFET devices with a Ba IL maintain a stable threshold voltage under NBTI stress conditions of-15V gate bias stress, at 150 °C for 100hrs, indicating no mobile ions. Secondary-ion mass-spectrometry (SIMS) analysis confirms that the Sr and Ba remain predominantly at the SiO2/SiC interface, even after high temperature oxide annealing, consistent with the observed high channel mobility after these anneals. The alkaline earth elements result in enhanced SiC oxidation rate, and the resulting gate oxide breakdown strength is slightly reduced compared to NO annealed thermal oxides on SiC.