SEMICONDUCTOR SILICON-CARBIDE - TECHNOLOGY AND DEVICES - A REVIEW

The level of development of silicon-carbide technology and devices, at tained worldwide in the last several years, is demonstrated methods of growing large bulk single crystals from the vapor phase, methods of g rowing thin films (sublimation, liquid-phase, and gas-phase epitaxy), dry etching, and thermal oxidation are considered. A description is gi ven of a wide spectrum of recently fabricated semiconductor devices, w hich combine the merits of silicon carbide as a wide-band material: (1 ) short-wavelength optoelectronic devices (green, blue, and violet LED s, UV photodetectors); (2) high-temperature electrical-conversion devi ces (diodes, field-effect transistors with a p-n junction, n-MOS trans istors with a built-in and an induced channel, bipolar transistors, an d thyristors); (3) high-frequency devices (microwave transistors with a Schottky gate); (4) long-term information-storage elements (transist or memory cells for programmable storage devices). (C) 1995 American I nstitute of Physics.