Basal Plane Dislocation Slip Band Characterization and Epitaxial Propagation in 4H SiC

Correlation of X-ray topography and production line defect inspection tools has demonstrated the capability of in-line tools to differentiate between geometrically comparable basal plane slip bands (BPSB) and bar stacking faults (BSF) on 4H SiC wafers. BPSBs were found to propagate through epitaxial growth at high rates and with similar photoluminescence signatures to post-epitaxy BSFs. Molten KOH etching post-epitaxy provided evidence of distinguishing features between BPSBs and BSFs, suggesting that the defects were indeed correctly identified by in-line defect inspection tools pre-epitaxy.