The influence of high energy electron (HEE) irradiation from a Sr-90 radio-nuclide on n-type Ni/4H-SiC samples of doping density 7.1 × 10 15 cm -3 has been investigated over the temperature range 40-300 K. Currentvoltage (I-V), capacitance-voltage (C-V) and deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) were used to characterize the devices before and after irradiation at a fluence of 6 × 10 14 electrons-cm -2 . For both devices, the I-V characteristics were well described by thermionic emission (TE) in the temperature range 120 -300 K, but deviated from TE theory at temperature below 120 K. The current flowing through the interface at a bias of 2.0 V from pure thermionic emission to thermionic field emission within the depletion region with the free carrier concentrations of the devices decreased from 7.8 × 10 15 to 6.8 × 10 15 cm -3 after HEE irradiation. The modified Richardson constants were determined from the Gaussian distribution of the barrier height across the contact and found to be 133 and 163 Acm −2 K −2 for as-deposited and irradiated diodes, respectively. Three new defects with energies 0.22, 0.40 and 0.71 eV appeared after HEE irradiation. Richardson constants were significantly less than the theoretical value which was ascribed to a small active device area.

Current-voltage, capacitance-voltage and conventional deep level transient spectroscopy at temperature ranges from 40-300 K have been employed to study the influence of alpha-particle irradiation from an 241 Am source on Ni/4H-SiC Schottky contacts. The nickel Schottky barrier diodes were resistively evaporated on n-type 4H-SiC samples of doping density of 7.1 × 10 15 cm −3 . It was observed that radiation damage caused an increase in ideality factors of the samples from 1.04 to 1.07, an increase in Schottky barrier height from 1.25 to 1.31 eV, an increase in series resistance from 48 to 270 Ω but a decrease in saturation current density from 55 to 9 × 10 −12 Am −2 from I-V plots at 300 K. The free carrier concentration of the sample decreased slightly after irradiation. Conventional DLTS showed peaks due to four deep levels for as-grown and five deep levels after irradiation. The Richardson constant, as determined from a modified Richardson plot assuming a Gaussian distribution of barrier heights for the as-grown and irradiated samples were 133 and 151 Acm −2 K −2 , respectively. These values are similar to literature values.

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Nickel Schottky diodes were fabricated on 4H -SiC. The diodes had excellent current rectification with about ten orders of magnitude between -50V and +2V. The ideality factor was obtained as 1.05 which signifies the dominance of the thermionic emission process in charge transport across the barrier. Deep level transient spectroscopy revealed the presence of four deep level defects in the 30 -350 K temperature range. The diodes were then irradiated with 5.4 MeV alpha particles up to fluence of 2.6 × 10 10 cm -2 . Current -voltage and Capacitance -voltage measurements revealed degraded diode characteristics after irradiation. DLTS revealed the presence of three more energy levels with activation enthalpies of 0.42 eV, 0.62 eV and 0.76 eV below the conduction band. These levels were however only realized after annealing the irradiated sample at 200 ˚C and they annealed out at 400 ˚C. The defect depth concentration was determined for some of the observed defects.

Deep-level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) and Laplace-DLTS were used to investigate the effect of alpha-particle irradiation on the electrical properties of nitrogen-doped 4H-SiC. The samples were bombarded with alpha-particles at room temperature (300 K) using an peaks at E C -(0.55-0.70) eV (known as Z 1 /Z 2 ) were attributed to an isolated carbon vacancy (V C ).