Recovery of the electrical characteristics of SiC-MOSFETs irradiated with gamma-rays by thermal treatments

横関 貴史; 阿部 浩之; 牧野 高紘; 小野田 忍; 田中 雄季*; 神取 幹郎*; 吉江 徹*; 土方 泰斗*; 大島 武

Materials Science Forum, 821-823, p.705 - 708, 2015/07

https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/MSF.821-823.705

Since silicon carbide (SiC) has high radiation resistance, it is expected to be applied to electronic devices used in harsh radiation environments, such as nuclear facilities. Especially, extremely high radiation resistant devices (MGy order) are required for decommissioning of TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors. The development of radiation resistant devices based on Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (MOS) FETs is important since MOSFETs can easily realize normally-off and low-loss power devices. In this study, we irradiated vertical power 4H-SiC MOSFETs with gamma-rays up to 1.2 MGy, and investigated the recovery of their degraded characteristics due to thermal annealing up to 360 C. The drain current (I) - gate voltage (V) curves of SiC MOSFETs shift to the negative voltage side and the leakage of I increased by irradiation at 1.2 MGy. After the irradiation, the MOSFETs were kept at RT for 240 h. By the RT-annealing, no significant change in the degraded electrical characteristics of SiC MOSFETs was observed. The degraded characteristics of SiC MOSFETs began to recover by annealing above 120 C, and their characteristics reach almost the initial ones by annealing at 360 C.