Single event effects of SiC diode demonstrated by pulsed-laser two photon absorption

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.microrel.2021.114364Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Model for Two-photon absorption (TPA) of pulsed laser front-side SEE testing

  • TPA of pulsed-laser energy transmission mechanism model for SiC diodes

  • Relationship between effective laser energy and equivalent LET

  • SiC Single event effects induced by TPA of pulsed laser

Abstract

By an effective energy model in the device under laser single event effects (SEE) test, a two-photon absorption (TPA) of pulsed laser energy transmission mechanism model vs heavy ion linear energy transfer (LET) for SEE have been established. Based on 4H Silicon Carbide (4H-SiC) diodes material parameters which should be considered for SEE) irradiated by TPA of pulsed laser, model for TPA of pulsed laser front-side SEE testing is built. Testing results show that model can give effective SEE laser energies. Meanwhile, relationship between effective laser energy and equivalent LET (ELET) has been validated. Single event transient (SET), permanent damage, and single event burnt-out (SEB) of 4H-SiC diode can be triggered by TPA of pulsed laser, and equivalent LET of pulsed laser energy is consistent with heavy ion LET.

Introduction

Silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) are two types of wide band gap semiconductors, which have characterizations of high electron mobility, saturated electron drift velocity, critical electric field, thermal conductivity, as well as inherently radiation hard nature [1], [2] in some radiation effects. For properties mentioned above make wide band gap semiconductors promising materials for the next generation power devices, and also are expected to play a major role in future terrestrial and space power systems [3].

As for SiC power device, SEB failure and permanent damage, or SETwere reported induced by heavy ions, protons, neutrons, pulsed laser which are by University of Bordeaux [3], Vanderbilt University [4], [5], Japan Atomic Energy Agency(JAEA) [6], [7], [8], [9], Infineon company [10], University Catholique de Louvain [11], CoolCAD electronics company [12], Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC) [13] etc. SEE mechanisms are well studied by testing methods mentioned above which can solve reliability issues of SiC-based power systems in space and terrestrial applications. However, as for the pulsed laser, laser energy transmission mechanism and SEE effective energy model in device active part vs heavy ion LET, as well as the TPA parameters for SiC have not been fully researched.

In this paper, laser TPA energy transmission mechanism and effective energy model in device active part vs heavy ion LET for SEE has been established, and also key optical parameters in 4H-SiC Schottky barrier diodes (SBD) and TPA coefficient were investigated. SEB, permanent damage and SET have been induced in the device by pulsed laser TPA method. Laser effective energy equivalent LET (ELET) vs heavy ion LET has been validated for the device, which will help quantitatively estimate the SEB mechanism.

Section snippets

Mechanism for pulsed laser TPA SEE effective energy vs heavy ion LET

According to the wavelength and number of photons absorbed by electron hole pairs generated by laser irradiation on semiconductor, it can be divided into single photon absorption (SPA), TPA, multi photon absorption (MPA), etc. [12], [13]. TPA means that the electron must absorb two photons at the same time in order to transition from low energy level to high energy level, and the energy of two photons must be greater than the difference between the two energy levels. Therefore, the beam power

Experimental sample and results

The 4H-SiC Schottky diode is tested by femto-second pulsed laser single event effects facility (FPLSEEF) from National Space Science Center (NSSC), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The laser consists of nominally 35 fs full-width-at-half-maximum (FWHM) optical pulses at 260 nm–1600 nm, with a pulse repetition rate of 5 kHz, at one single laser pulse shot energy at 1 mJ(5 kHz). Resolution of the XYZ stage is 1 μm. Microscope objective is 50×.

Conclusions

A single event effects (SEE) effective energy and equivalent LET model by pulsed laser TPA of 4H-SiC has been established. As for material parameters should be considered, a SiC SBD has been tested by the pulsed laser which induced SET, SEB, and permanent damage. The relationship between effective laser energy and equivalent LET (ELET) is also validated by comparing laser and heavy ion results.

Both theoretical and experimental results show that our TPA laser effective energy model and ELET

CRediT authorship contribution statement

I have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work. AND I have drafted the work or revised it critically for important intellectual content; AND I agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

All persons who have made substantial contributions to the work

Declaration of competing interest

We declare that we have no financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that can inappropriately influence our work, there is no professional or other personal interest of any nature or kind in any product, service and/or company that could be construed as influencing the position presented in, or the review of, the manuscript entitled.

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Cited by (6)

  • Displacement damage and single event effects of SiC diodes and MOSFETs by neutron, heavy ions and pulsed laser

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    Citation Excerpt :

    Though enough attentions have been paid to the DD and SEE capabilities of SiC DUTs, not enough attention have been made to how the DD affect the SEE capabilities, DD effects will induce leakage current, no matter how much current increasing, the DD will introduce a leakage current path, meanwhile, when SEE irradiation, it will also make a leakage current path [11], this kind of leakage current increasing together will reduce the threshold LET of SEB. Meanwhile, as a complementary method of heavy ion with its own traits, pulsed laser [12–16] has been used to test SEE of SiC [14] and GaN [17] which give SEE results are consistent with heavy ion results. So pulsed laser, can also be used as a unique method to test the composite effects of both DD and SEE.

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