Total dose effects on 4H-SiC bipolar junction transistors

In this work, total dose effects on 4H-SiC bipolar junction transistors (BJT) are investigated. Three 4H-SiC NPN BJT chips are irradiated with 3MeV protons with a dose of 1×10 ¹¹ , 1×10 ¹² and 1×10 ¹³ cm ^-2 , respectively. From the measured reciprocal current gain it is observed that 4H-SiC NPN BJT exposed to protons suffer both displacement damage and ionization, whereas, a traditional Si BJT suffers mainly from displacement damage. Furthermore, bulk damage introduction rates for SiC BJT were extracted to be 3.3×10 ^-15 cm ² , which is an order of magnitude lower compared to reported Si values. Finally, from detailed analysis of the base current at low injection levels, it is possible to distinguish when surface recombination leakage is dominant over bulk recombination.