Glide of C-core partial dislocations along edges of expanding double-Shockley stacking faults in heavily nitrogen-doped 4H-SiC

Abstract

The glide of C-core partial dislocations (PDs) that enclose double-Shockley stacking faults (DSFs) expanding in heavily nitrogen-doped 4H-SiC crystals was studied experimentally. We successively annealed a heavily doped SiC crystal with a nitrogen concentration of 4.9 × 1019 cm-3, and the DSF expansion during high-temperature annealing was investigated with photoluminescence (PL) imaging and synchrotron X-ray topography techniques. The glide velocities of 90° and 30° C-core PDs for DSF expansion in the temperature ranges of 600 °C-725 °C and 975 °C-1150 °C, respectively, were evaluated by collating the PL and synchrotron X-ray topography images. Finally, the activation energies and pre-exponential factors for the gliding of the C-core PDs were obtained from the temperature dependences of the dislocation velocities.