Reduction in background carrier concentration has been investigated for 4H-SiC C-face epitaxial growth in order to be applied for ultra-high voltage power devices. Optimizing epitaxial growth parameters made it possible to achieve 7.6x1013 cm-3 as the background carrier concentration within a whole area of specular 3-inch wafers. In addition to the background carrier concentration reduction, epitaxial film thickness variation, surface defect density and the carrier lifetime have been confirmed to fulfill the requirements for the devices.

Homoepitaxial growth on 4H-SiC Si-face substrates with sizes corresponding to 150 mm was carried out. The influence of growth conditions for uniformity and epitaxial defect density was investigated. A 150 mm size was realized by using two 76.2 mm wafers lined up in a radial direction. C/Si ratio is found to be a major parameter for controlling triangular defect density and the generation of step bunching. As a result, the surface morphology without bunched step structure and the triangular defect density with 0.5 cm−2 were obtained by decreasing C/Si ratio to 1.0 on the size corresponding to 150 mm. Under this condition, good carrier concentration and thickness uniformity of σ/mean =15.2 % and 1.7 % could be obtained.

The influence of growth conditions and susceptor purity on the residual contamination in undoped 4H-SiC epitaxial layer grown at higher temperature such as 1600 °C is investigated. Residual N concentration is found to increase with growth temperature. Growth temperature dependence of residual N concentration is stronger than that of Al or B. The effect of degradation of SiC coating layer on the purity of the epitaxial layer is studied. SiC coating layer is degraded after very few repetition of growth-run. SIMS measurement reveals that the concentration of N, Al, B, Ti and V in epitaxial layer increases with the deterioration of SiC coating layer. Therefore, serious consideration on the effect of contamination from the susceptor graphite is required. By using various grades of graphite as susceptor, the dependence of the purity of epitaxial layer on the susceptor purity is studied. High concentration (1017 to 1018 cm−3) of N is found in graphite. Contamination of all types of impurities such as p-type impurities, transition metal impurities and N in graphite is found to affect the purity of epitaxial layers.

We report drain-current (Id) deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) spectra and liquid-encapsulated-Czochralski-technique (LEC) GaAs crystal effect on low-frequency-oscillation (LFO) of wide gate (400-μm) Si-implanted GaAs metal- semiconductor field- effect- transistors (MESFETs). In the range of this experiment we could not find distinguishing DLTS peaks surely to be linked with Id-LFO of the MESFETs. Stoichiometric-melt growth LEC-boules showed relatively large Id-LFO phenomena. As-rich-melt growth LEC-boules showed tolerance to Id-LFO. We conclude that Id-LFO is not directly linked to deep centers themselves but interaction between deep centers and potential profiles and electrons. Stability of potential profile or band profile depends on “pinning’ center, which affects Fermi-level or quasi-Fermi-level stability. ‘Pinning’ center such as EL2s of ‘LEC GaAs crystals” is essential.