Silicon carbide (SiC), with its wide bandgap and strong resistance to radiation and thermal conditions, is a promising material for ultraviolet (UV) photodetector applications under harsh environments. In this study, porous SiC thin films with thicknesses of 20, 50, and 80 nm were fabricated on 4H-SiC substrates using aerosol deposition (AD), which enables roomtemperature film formation. The device with a 50 nm-thick film exhibited the highest photoresponse under UV-C illumination (260 nm), achieving a maximum photo-to-dark current ratio (PDCR) of 205.2, a responsivity of 0.058 A/W, an external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 27.71%, and a specific detectivity (D*) of 7.9×10¹¹ Jones. These results are attributed to an optimized balance between photon absorption and carrier transport in the porous structure. The findings confirm the potential of ADfabricated porous SiC films for highly sensitive and scalable UV photodetector applications.

In this study, we measured and comparatively analyzed the characteristics of MPS (Merged Pin Schottky) diodes in 4H-SiC by changing the areal ratio between the Schottky and PN junction region. Increasing the temperature from 298 K to 473 K resulted in the threshold voltage shifting from 0.8 V to 0.5 V. A wider Schottky region indicates a lower on-resistance and a faster turn-on. The effective barrier height was smaller for a wider Schottky region. Additionally, the depletion layer became smaller under the influence of the reduced effective barrier height. The wider Schottky region resulted in the ideality factor being reduced from 1.37 to 1.01, which is closer to an ideal device. The leakage saturation current increased with the widening Schottky region, resulting in a 1.38 times to 2.09 times larger leakage current.

The wettability of silicon carbide (SiC) crystal, which has 6H-SiC and 4H-SiC regions prepared using the physical vapor transport (PVT) method, is quantitatively analyzed using dispensed deionized (DI) water droplets. Regardless of the polytypes in SiC, the average of five contact angle measurements showed a difference of about 6° between the Si-face and C-face. The contact angle on the Si-face (C-face) is measured after the removal of the native oxide using BOE (6:1), and revealed a significant decrease of the contact angle from 74.9° (68.4°) to 47.7° (49.3°) and from 75.8° (70.2°) to 51.6° (49.5°) for the 4H-SiC and 6H-SiC regions, respectively. The contact angle of the Si-face recovered over time during room temperature oxidation in air; in contrast, that of the C-face did not recover to the initial value. This study shows that the contact angle is very sensitive to SiC surface polarity, specific surface conditions, and process time. Contact angle measurements are expected to be a rapid way of determining the surface polarity and wettability of SiC crystals.

Ga₂O₃/n-type 4H-SiC heterojunction diodes were fabricated by RF magnetron sputtering. The optical properties of Ga₂O₃ and electrical properties of diodes were investigated. I-V characteristics were compared with simulation data from the Atlas software. The band gap of Ga₂O₃ was changed from 5.01 eV to 4.88 eV through oxygen annealing. The doping concentration of Ga₂O₃ was extracted from C-V characteristics. The annealed oxygen exhibited twice higher doping concentration. The annealed diodes showed improved turn-on voltage (0.99 V) and lower leakage current (3 pA). Furthermore, the oxygen-annealed diodes exhibited a temperature cross-point when temperature increased, and its ideality factor was lower than that of as-grown diodes.

The change in vanadium amount according to the growth direction of vanadium-doped semi-insulated (SI) SiC single crystals using high-purity SiC powder was investigated. High-purity SiC powder and a porous graphite (PG) inner crucible were placed on opposite sides of SiC seed crystals. SI SiC crystals were grown on 2 inch 6H-SiC Si-face seeds at a temperature of 2,300℃ and growth pressure of 10~30 mbar of argon atmosphere, using the physical vapor transport (PVT) method. The sliced SiC single crystals were polished using diamond slurry. We analyzed the polytype and quality of the SiC crystals using high-resolution X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman spectroscopy. The resistivity of the SI SiC crystals was analyzed using contactless resistivity mapping (COREMA) measurements.

1,200 V class junction barrier schottky (JBS) diodes and schottky barrier diodes (SBD) were simultaneously fabricated on the same 4H-SiC wafer. The resulting diodes were characterized at temperatures from room temperature to 473 K and subsequently compared in terms of their respective I-V characteristics. The parameters deduced from the observed I-V measurements, including ideality factor and series resistance, indicate that, as the temperature increases, the threshold voltage decreases whereas the ideality factor and barrier height increase. As JBS diodes have both Schottky and PN junction structures, the proper depletion layer thickness, R_on, and electron mobility values must be determined in order to produce diodes with an effective barrier height. The comparison results showed that the JBS diodes exhibit a larger effective barrier height compared to the SBDs.

In this work, we investigate the effects of lithium doping on the electric performance of solution-processed n-type zinc tin oxide (ZTO)/p-type silicon carbide (SiC) heterojunction diode structures. The proper amount of lithium doping not only affects the carrier concentration and interface quality but also influences the temperature sensitivity of the series resistance and activation energy. We confirmed that the device characteristics vary with lithium doping at concentrations of 0, 10, and 20 wt%. In particular, the highest rectification ratio of 1.89×107 and the lowest trap density of 4.829×1,022 cm^-2 were observed at 20 wt% of lithium doping. Devices at this doping level showed the best characteristics. As the temperature was increased, the series resistance value decreased. Additionally, the activation energy was observed to change with respect to the component acting on the trap. We have demonstrated that lithium doping is an effective way to obtain a higher performance ZTO-based diode.

We investigated the effects of annealing on the electrical and thermal properties of ZTO/4H-SiC heterojunction diodes. A ZTO thin film layer was grown on p-type 4H-SiC substrate by using solution process. The ZTO/SiC heterojunction structures annealed at 500℃ show that Ion/Ioff increases from ~5.13×107 to ~1.11×109 owing to the increased electron concentration of ZTO layer as confirmed by capacitance-voltage characteristics. In addition, the electrical characterization of ZTO/SiC heterojunction has been carried out in the temperature range of 300∼500 K. When the measurement temperature increased from 300 K to 500 K, the reverse current variation of annealed device is higher than as-grown device, which is related to barrier height in the ZTO/SiC interface. It is shown that annealing process is possible to control the electrical characteristics of ZTO/SiC heterojunction diode.

ZnO thin films were deposited on p-type 4H-SiC substrate by pulsed laser deposition. ZnO nanowires were formed on p-type 4H-SiC substrate by furnace. Ti/Au electrodes were deposited on ZnO thin film/SiC and ZnO nanowire/SiC structures, respectively. Structural and crystallographical properties of the fabricated ZnO thin film/SiC and ZnO nanowire/SiC structures were investigated by field emission scanning electron microscope and X-ray diffraction. In this work, resistance and sensitivity of ZnO thin film/SiC gas sensor and ZnO nanowire/SiC gas sensor were measured at 300℃ with various CO gas concentrations (0%, 90%, 70%, and 50%). Resistance of gas sensor decreases at CO gas atmosphere. Sensitivity of ZnO nanowire/SiC gas sensor is twice as big as sensitivity of ZnO thin film/SiC gas sensor.