Ion-channeling studies of interfaces and defect properties in silicon carbide

Helium ion channeling has been used in a detailed study of 3C-SiC films on a Si/SiO2/Si (SIMOX) substrate. The strain-induced angular shift was determined to be 0.16 degrees +/- 0.05 degrees, indicating a kink between the SiC and Si layers along the <110> axis. Single crystals of 6H-SiC have been irradiated with a variety of ions over a range of fluences. The relative disorder on Si sublattice shows a sigmoidal dependence on dose for all ions. In isochronal and isothermal annealing studies, two distinct recovery stages are identified with activation energies of 0.25 +/- 0.1 eV and 1.5 +/- 0.3 eV, respectively. Deuterium ibn channeling is also applied to simultaneously study accumulated disorder on Si and C sublattices in 6H-SiC crystals irradiated at 100 and 300 K.