Decoration and Density Increase of Dislocations in PVT-Grown SiC Boules with Post-Growth Thermal Processing

Post-growth thermal processing at higher temperature generates more BPDs (basal plane dislocations). It is observed that dislocation visibility in surface inspection tool images varies significantly even at comparable dislocation densities. Combination of dislocation decoration and light absorbance from SiC matrix by point defects or dopants has been proposed as a working hypothesis to explain dislocation visibility variations.