Improvement of the Thermal Conductivity in 4H-SiC Epitaxial Layer by Introducing Gettering Sites

Metal impurities are known to degrade dramatically the performances of silicon-based devices, even at concentrations as low as 10(12) cm(-3). A specific process, named proximity gettering, has been optimised by some authors in order to reduce the influence of these impurities [1]. This process consists in the building of a favourable impurity trapping zone in a non-active area of the device, by introducing implantation defects. This paper reports on the application of introducing such gettering sites as an approach to control phonon properties in 4H-SiC epilayer, and increase the thermal conductivity.