Tuning the interfacial properties of stacked gate dielectrics on silicon carbide by inserting h-BN layer
Abstract
Silicon carbide (SiC) has significant potential for applications in high-voltage, high-temperature, and high-power devices, such as fast charging systems, grid-connected power systems, and switching power supplies. However, the performance of SiC-based metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect-transistor devices is greatly limited by low channel mobility due to the high density of interface states at the SiO2/SiC interface. To address the issue of interface states, we have fabricated SiC-based metal–insulator–semiconductor capacitors featuring a stacked gate dielectric architecture (h-BN/Al2O3) and compared the effects of inserting h-BN thickness on the electrical properties of these capacitors. The insertion of a thin h-BN layer reduces the interface state density by more than two orders of magnitude compared to the structure with a single Al2O3 dielectric. Moreover, the stacked gate dielectric results in a notable reduction in the leakage current density from 5.19 × 10−2 to 3.78 × 10−9 A/cm2 at 4 MV/cm, accompanied by a reduction in the flatband voltage shift from 0.14 to 0.07 V. Such benefits originate from the improved band offset of 2.22 eV and the N atom passivation effect between the h-BN and SiC. These results present a practical solution for enhancing the performance of SiC/h-BN nanoelectronics, optoelectronics, and power electronics devices.
Article Details
Journal Info
Applied Physics Letters
American Institute of Physics
Authors (13)
Xuan Tang
Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Feringa Nobel Prize Scientist Joint Research Center, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering
Jingren Chen
Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences 2 , Beijing 100049,
Zhanwei Shen
Yuyang Miao
Department of Medicine-Huddinge, Karolinska Institutet
Ji Jiang
Xiaogang Zhu
Department of Physics, College of Physical Science and Technology, Xiamen University 4 , Xiamen 361005,
Yu Huang
Jinyi Xu
State Key Laboratory of Natural Medicines and Department of Medicinal Chemistry, China Pharmaceutical University
Hangshuo Shi
Laboratory of Solid-State Optoelectronics Information Technology, Beijing Key Laboratory of Low Dimensional Semiconductor Materials and Devices, Key Laboratory of Semiconductor Materials Science, Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences 1 , Beijing 100083,
Shizhong Yue
Laboratory of Solid-State Optoelectronics Information Technology, Beijing Key Laboratory of Low Dimensional Semiconductor Materials and Devices, Key Laboratory of Semiconductor Materials Science, Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences 1 , Beijing 100083,
Feng Zhang
Xingwang Zhang
Key Laboratory of Biomass Chemical Engineering of Ministry of Education, College of Chemical and Biological Engineering
Zhijie Wang
Research Institute of Photocatalysis, State Key Laboratory of Photocatalysis on Energy and Environment, College of Chemistry