Radiation detection using fully depleted 50 μm thick Ni/n-4H-SiC epitaxial layer Schottky diodes with ultra-low concentration of Z 1 / 2 and E H 6 / 7 deep defects

Recent advances in the development of thick 4H-SiC epitaxial layers for the fabrication of surface barrier radiation detectors have been paving the way for their use in highly penetrating radiation detection. Challenges still exist to achieve full depletion all the way to the epilayer width, while maintaining a low leakage current at high reverse bias conditions. We report the fabrication of high-resolution and low leakage current Schottky barrier alpha particle detectors with a large active area of 11 mm2 on 50 μm thick n-type 4H-SiC epitaxial layers, which can be fully depleted. The detectors were cut out of large substrates of 100 mm diameter with a micropipe density