Effect of heavy proton and neutron irradiations on epitaxial 4H-SiC Schottky diodes

ABSTRACT In this work we report electrical characterizations on heavily irradiated epitaxial 4H-SiC Schottky diodes. Even after an irradiation at a fluence of 1.4 10^16 p/cm^2 and 7 10^15 n/cm^2, we found the diodes still able to detect alpha and beta particles with a charge collection efficiency (CCE) ranging from 25 to 30% after proton irradiation and about 18% after neutron irradiation, at the highest reverse bias applied. This corresponds to a charge collection distance (CCD) of 7 um after the proton irradiation and 5 um after the neutron irradiation. As the irradiation level approaches the range ~10^15/cm^2, the material behaves as intrinsic due to a very high compensation effect.