Study of carbon in thermal oxide formed on 4H-SiC by XPS

In this work, we present results on the study of bonding and concentration of carbon in 4H-SiC MOS structure by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The XPS spectra were fitted by several Gaussian lineshape functions. It is found that the so-called carbon clusters (C-C bonds) appear at the interface of SiO2/SiC, but are not seen in the oxide bulk. However, there are still some SiOxCy and Si-C bonds inside the oxide and the integrated area ratio of SiOxCy/Si-C bonds increases when further away from the SiO2/SiC interface. These observations can be interpreted in terms of the dynamic oxidation process that transforms Si-C bonds into SiOxCy bonds, which are then further oxidized to form SiO2 bonds.