Analysis of Heavy Ion Irradiation Induced Thermal Damage in SiC Schottky Diodes

A study is presented aimed at describing phenomena involved in Single Event Burnout induced by heavy ion irradiation in SiC Schottky diodes. On the basis of experimental data obtained for irradiation at different energies, electro-thermal FEM is used to demonstrate that the failure is caused by a strong local increase of the semiconductor temperature. With respect to previous studies the temperature dependent thermal material properties were added. The critical ion energy calculated by this model is in agreement with literature experimental results. The substrate doping dependence of the SEE robustness was analyzed, proving the effectiveness of the developed model for device technological improvements.