Investigation of Charge Carrier Lifetime Temperature-Dependence in 4H-SiC Diodes

Recently published experimental results for 4H–SiC diodes up to 700 °C are used to deduce the hole lifetime temperature-dependence in n-base for high temperature range. The reverse recovery measurements are interpreted by the nonisothermal drift-diffusion simulator DYNAMIT. The uncertainties from lifetimes unknown behavior in emitter layers and consequences from possible nonuniform lifetime distribution in n-base are analyzed. Results show that up to temperature 400 °C nearly quadratic dependence of lifetime versus temperature τ ~ T 2 holds. At higher temperatures lifetime growth is accelerated approximately to quartic dependence τ ~ T 4.