Raman characterization of damaged layers of 4H-SiC induced by scratching
Shin-ichi Nakashima,
Takeshi Mitani,
Masaru Tomobe,
Tomohisa Kato,
Hajime Okumura
Affiliations
Shin-ichi Nakashima
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Advanced Power Electronics Research Center, Umezono 1-1-1, Central 2, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8568, Japan
Takeshi Mitani
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Advanced Power Electronics Research Center, Umezono 1-1-1, Central 2, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8568, Japan
Masaru Tomobe
Graduate School of Integrated Basic Sciences, Nihon University, 3-25-40 Setagaya, Tokyo 156-8550, Japan
Tomohisa Kato
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Advanced Power Electronics Research Center, Umezono 1-1-1, Central 2, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8568, Japan
Hajime Okumura
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Advanced Power Electronics Research Center, Umezono 1-1-1, Central 2, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8568, Japan
Recent development of device fabrication of SiC is awaiting detailed study of the machining of the surfaces. We scratched 4H-SiC surfaces with a sliding microindenter made of a SiC chip, and characterized machining affected layers by micro-Raman spectroscopy. The results of the Raman measurement of the scratching grooves revealed that there were residual stress, defects, and stacking faults. Furthermore, with heavy scratching load, we found clusters of amorphous SiC, Si, amorphous carbon, and graphite in the scratching grooves. Analysis of the Raman spectra showed that SiC amorphization occurs first and surface graphitization (carbonization) is subsequently generated through the phase transformation of SiC. We expect that the Raman characterization of machined surfaces provides information on the machining mechanism for compound semiconductors.
