Optical admittance studies of vanadium donor level in high-resistivity p-type 6H-SiC

The vanadium donor level in high-resistivity p-type 6H-SiC has been studied using optical admittance spectroscopy. Besides the conductance peak due to the band to band transitions, there are three conductance peaks in the spectra of most of the samples. These peaks correspond to photoexcitation of electrons from the valence band to the defect levels. The conductance peak due to the vanadium donor [V4+(3d1)] level at Ev+1.55 eV is identified. The build up of the photoconductance at this peak was studied and it was found that the conductance transients are completely described by a sum of two exponential expressions. The relevant parameters, α1, α2, Gmax(1) and Gmax(2), were determined as functions of temperature. The persistent photoconductance (PPC) due to this defect was also studied. The decay kinetics of the PPC follow the stretched exponential form. The potential barrier against recapture of carriers was determined to be 220 meV for the vanadium donor level.