Insight into Channel Conduction Mechanisms of 4H-SiC(0001) MOSFET Based on Temperature-Dependent Hall Effect Measurement

Temperature-dependent Hall effect measurements were conducted to investigate the channel conduction mechanisms of 4H-SiC metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs). This method allows us to discriminate the impact of the density of mobile (free) carriers in the inversion channels and their net mobility on the performance of SiC MOSFETs. It was found that, while the free carrier ratio of SiC MOSFETs with conventional gate oxides formed by dry oxidation is below 4% at 300 K, increasing the free carrier ratio due to thermal excitation of trapped electrons from SiO2/SiC interfaces leads to an unusual improvement in the field-effect mobility of SiC MOSFETs at elevated temperatures. Specifically, a significant increase in free carrier density surpasses the mobility degradation caused by phonon scattering for thermally grown SiO2/SiC interfaces. It was also found that, although nitrogen incorporation in SiO2/SiC interfaces increases the free carrier ratio typically up to around 30%, introduction of an additional scattering factor associated with interface nitridation compensates for the moderate amount of thermally generated mobile carriers at high temperatures, indicating a fundamental drawback of nitridation of SiO2/SiC interfaces. On the basis of these findings, we discuss the channel conduction mechanisms of SiC MOSFETs.