PHOTOLUMINESCENCE CHARACTERIZATION OF CUBIC SIC GROWN BY CHEMICAL VAPOR-DEPOSITION ON SI SUBSTRATES

Photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy has proven to be a powerful tool for the detection and identification of impurities and other defects in semiconductors. After a brief description of the phenomenology and experimental techniques, the application of PL to the characterization of thin films of cubic SiC grown on Si (100) substrates by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) will be discussed. Specific examples include the detection and/or identification of impurities and defects on the basis of PL spectra attributable to excitons bound to neutral impurities (nitrogen donor bound excitons), free carriers recombining with carriers bound at impurities (aluminum free-to-bound transitions), and donor-acceptor pair (DAP) recombination (N-Al DAP bands). The use of time decay characteristics and excitation power dependence to classify recombination processes of the basis of lifetimes, and the determination of impurity ionization energies from the temperature quenching of PL bands will be discussed. © 1990.