Effective Penetration Depth Investigation for Frank Type Dislocation (Deflected TSDs/TMDs) on Grazing Incidence Synchrotron X-Ray Topographs of 4H-SiC Wafers

In 4H-SiC crystals, Frank type dislocations are created through the deflection of threading screw/mixed dislocations onto the basal plane. Grazing-incidence X-ray topographs are often used to evaluate the density of such dislocations and a knowledge of the effective penetration depth is therefore essential. In this study, a systematic analysis is performed to investigate the effective penetration depth, which is the depth from which contrast from the dislocation is still discernible. This is achieved by comparison between observed topographic images and detailed ray tracing simulations. Simulations shows no significant contrast difference between a deflected TSD and a deflected TMD with the same line direction since the large c component is the dominant contributor to the effective misorientation, whereas the effect of a component is rather negligible. Therefore, this effective penetration depth study uses ray tracing simulation images of deflected TSDs with photoelectric absorption applied to compare with all topographically observed Frank type dislocations. Analysis first reveals that the effective penetration depth varies with the line direction of a Frank type dislocation, and the effective penetration depth is significantly deeper compared to that of a BPD. Further, the effective penetration depth on ray tracing simulations with absorption applied matches well with experimentally measured depth. The study also evaluated the effectiveness of a simplified model based on an approximate expression for the effective misorientation of a dislocation modulated by photoelectric absorption. This was also found to yield satisfactory results and can be used as a universal method to determine the effective penetration depth for Frank type dislocations with c component of Burgers vector.