Anomalous Charge Collection in Silicon Carbide Schottky Barrier Diodes and Resulting Permanent Damage and Single-Event Burnout

Abstract

It was demonstrated that Silicon Carbide Schottky Barrier Diodes exhibited anomalous charge collection with heavy ion irradiation. Consequently, the permanent damage and Single-Event Burnout was observed in spite of no known current sustaining mechanism. A model for the mechanism was proposed based on the device simulation.Index Terms-Heavy ion, Schottky barrier diode, silicon carbide, single-event burnout.

Charge Transport Mechanisms in Heavy-Ion Driven Leakage Current in Silicon Carbide Schottky Power Diodes

“…This effect was first reported in [3]. The effect is illustrated in Figure 1, where the evolution of leakage current during Xe-ion exposure is given for several different biasing configurations for STPSC1006D diodes.…”

“…Above device-specific bias voltage levels, silicon-based power devices, such as power MOSFETs, typically experience directly catastrophic failure, either Single Event Gate Rupture (SEGR) or Single Event Burnout (SEB). However, Schottky devices, made of SiC [3], Si [6], and GaN [7]- [9], have been reported to exhibit gradual degradation under heavy-ion exposure. SiC Schottky devices also undergo catastrophic SEB when the bias level during irradiation is sufficiently high [1], [3].…”

Heavy Ion Induced Degradation in SiC Schottky Diodes: Incident Angle and Energy Deposition Dependence

“…Heavy-ion exposure has been shown to increase reverse leakage current in SiC Schottky diodes, when a sufficient reverse bias is applied during radiation exposure [6], [7], [15]. When an ion beam hits the device at an angle off normal incidence, a similar, but weaker, effect is observed [11].…”

“…The silicon power devices typically exhibit separate regions of destructive and nondestructive response as a function of voltage [4], [5]. In addition to these two regions, SiC Schottky devices have been reported to exhibit also a third region where devices suffer from gradual degradation under heavy-ion exposure [2], [6], [7]. This gradual degradation complicates the assessment of SiC parts for catastrophic failures like Single Event Burnout (SEB).…”

Single-Event Burnout of SiC Junction Barrier Schottky Diode High-Voltage Power Devices

“…In addition, efficient Schottky switching diodes in SiC can be manufactured that exhibit very low on-state voltage and minimal turn-off switching loss with almost no reverserecovery behavior, which makes SiC a good candidate for space power conversion applications. However, the sensitivity of SiC power devices (MOSFETs and diodes) to particle radiation has been found to be higher than expected, given the wide bandgap and high critical electric field, as shown by multiple researchers who have consistently measured significant leakage current increases and single-event burnout in SiC devices [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11].…”