Electric contact metallization and fabrication of high voltage, high temperature metal-silicon carbide junctions

The principal objective of this work is to develop high voltage Schottky junction rectifiers for power switching applications at high temperature. With careful design of the device structure as well as of the fabrication process, 1100 volts Schottky junction rectifiers operated at temperatures as high as 300;The study of Schottky junction on 3C-SiC/Si structures introduces the potential applications to integrate SiC devices with the well-established Si technology. The Ni/3C-SiC Schottky junction produced from this study holds the highest breakdown voltage and smallest leakage for a Schottky device fabricated on 3C-SiC/Si structures to date.;The Ni Metallization process, which includes film deposition, metal film patterning, thermal processing etc., has played a crucial role in achieving the device performance. In that sense, the study of the metallization properties, such as the film resistivity, grain cell evolution, and microstructure as a function of deposition and annealing thermal conditions, has contributed a great deal to the optimization of the device processing. Ni films with near-bulk resistivity were obtained with elevated temperature deposition. Low resistivity Ni also has potential as an interconnection material for VLSI technology.;The understanding of the Ni-SiC ohmic contact mechanism and the thermal effects on determining the contact nature of Ni-SiC metallization system have explained the experimental facts that the thermal process separates the rectifying and ohmic contact nature. The use of single metallization has the potential to simplify process parameters without compromising the device performance.