Defect-induced performance degradation of 4H-SiC Schottky barrier diode particle detectors

The formation and evolution of defects in 4H-SiC Schottky barrier diode high-energy particle detectors have been investigated and correlated with the detectors' properties. Low temperature annealing at 300 °C is found to significantly recover the charge collection efficiency as degraded by 1 MeV electron irradiation. At higher temperatures, an anneal-induced degradation in the detector's performance is observed. Current-voltage, capacitance-voltage, and deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) measurements are used to ascertain the effect of defects on the detector performance. The latter reveals that the DLTS defect levels, EH1 and EH3, are related to the initial recovery of the charge collection efficiency.