Laser-enhanced diffusion of nitrogen and aluminum dopants in silicon carbide Original Research Article

The diffusivities of different types of dopant atoms in silicon carbide wafers are generally very low. Nd:YAG and excimer lasers have been used to dope silicon carbide with nitrogen and aluminum, respectively. Mathematical models have been presented for the temperature distributions in the wafers to understand the diffusion mechanisms in the laser doping process. Since the silicon carbide substrate reaches its peritectic temperature (3100 K) at irradiances of 80.6 and 61 MW/cm2 for Nd:YAG and excimer lasers, respectively, lower irradiances were used to achieve solid-state diffusion. The Nd:YAG laser doping process doped nitrogen to a depth of 800 nm; the KrF excimer laser doping process produced aluminum dopant depths of 200 and 450 nm for different numbers of laser pulses. Two distinct diffusion regions, near-surface and far-surface regions, were identified in the dopant concentration profiles, indicating different diffusion mechanisms in these two regions. The effective diffusion coefficients of nitrogen and aluminum were determined for both regions and found to be 2.4 × 10−5 and 9.2 × 10−6 cm2/s in the near- and far-surface regions for nitrogen, respectively, and 1.2 × 10−5 and 1.3 × 10−6 cm2/s in the near- and far-surface regions for aluminum, respectively. The calculated diffusivities are at least six orders of magnitude higher than the typical values for nitrogen and aluminum, which indicate that the laser doping process enhances significantly the diffusion of dopants in silicon carbide.