High Performance Pd/4H-SiC Epitaxial Schottky Barrier Radiation Detectors for Harsh Environment Applications.

Although many refractory metals have been investigated as the choice of contact metal in 4H-SiC devices, palladium (Pd) as a Schottky barrier contact for 4H-SiC radiation detectors for harsh environment applications has not been investigated adequately. Pd is a refractory metal with high material weight-to-thickness ratio and a work function as high as nickel, one of the conventional metal contacts for high performing 4H-SiC Schottky barrier detectors (SBDs). In this article, Pd/4H-SiC epitaxial SBDs have been demonstrated for the first time as a superior self-biased (0 V applied bias) radiation detector when compared to benchmark Ni/4H-SiC SBDs.

Advances in High-Resolution Radiation Detection Using 4H-SiC Epitaxial Layer Devices.

Advances towards achieving the goal of miniature 4H-SiC based radiation detectors for harsh environment application have been studied extensively and reviewed in this article. The miniaturized devices were developed at the University of South Carolina (UofSC) on 8 × 8mm 4H-SiC epitaxial layer wafers with an active area of ≈11 mm. The thicknesses of the actual epitaxial layers were either 20 or 50 µm.