Crack healing behavior of 4H-SiC: Effect of dopants

We investigate the crack-healing mechanism of 4H silicon carbide (4H-SiC) and reveal the effect of dopants on the crack-healing behavior of 4H-SiC. Vickers indentation tests and thermal annealing are utilized to generate cracks and heal cracks in 4H-SiC, respectively. High-temperature thermal annealing in the air atmosphere is found to be capable of effectively healing indentation-induced cracks and releasing indentation-induced stress in undoped 4H-SiC by the formation and viscous flow of glass phase SiO2. Nitrogen (N) doping is found to assist the atomic diffusion of 4H-SiC. The crack healing of N-doped 4H-SiC is realized by the synergy of host solid diffusion and the padding of glassy SiO2. In contrast, vanadium (V) doping hinders the viscous flow of SiO2 and results in the incomplete healing of cracks in V-doped 4H-SiC. Although the generation of cracks lowers the bending strength of 4H-SiC, the healing of cracks by the padding of glassy SiO2 is found to effectively recover the bending strength of indented 4H-SiC samples. Our work opens a pathway to design thermal processing technologies to heal the cracks and enhance the mechanical properties of 4H-SiC wafers.

Automated summary

We investigated the crack-healing mechanism of 4H silicon carbide (4H-SiC) and found that high-temperature thermal annealing in the air atmosphere effectively heals indentation-induced cracks in undoped 4H-SiC by the formation and viscous flow of SiO2. Nitrogen doping assists the atomic diffusion and crack healing of 4H-SiC, while vanadium doping hinders the healing process. The padding of glassy SiO2 is found to effectively recover the bending strength of indented 4H-SiC samples.