**Appendix A**


**Table A1.** Mobility parameters [19].

**Table A2.** Incomplete ionization parameters [19].


## **References**


**Alexander A. Lebedev 1,\* , Vitali V. Kozlovski <sup>2</sup> , Klavdia S. Davydovskaya <sup>1</sup> and Mikhail E. Levinshtein <sup>1</sup>**


**Abstract:** The radiation hardness of silicon carbide with respect to electron and proton irradiation and its dependence on the irradiation temperature are analyzed. It is shown that the main mechanism of SiC compensation is the formation of deep acceptor levels. With increasing the irradiation temperature, the probability of the formation of these centers decreases, and they are partly annealed out. As a result, the carrier removal rate in SiC becomes ~6 orders of magnitude lower in the case of irradiation at 500 ◦C. Once again, this proves that silicon carbide is promising as a material for high-temperature electronics devices.

**Keywords:** silicon carbide; radiation hardness; proton and electron irradiation; charge removal rate; compensation; irradiation temperature

**Citation:** Lebedev, A.A.; Kozlovski, V.V.; Davydovskaya, K.S.; Levinshtein, M.E. Radiation Hardness of Silicon Carbide upon High-Temperature Electron and Proton Irradiation. *Materials* **2021**, *14*, 4976. https://doi.org/10.3390/ ma14174976

Academic Editor: Fabrizio Roccaforte

Received: 30 July 2021 Accepted: 26 August 2021 Published: 31 August 2021

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## **1. Introduction**

One of the stimuli in development of the technology of wide-bandgap semiconductors and creating devices on their basis is the high presumed radiation hardness of these materials. Indeed, making higher binding energy of atoms in the lattice of a semiconductor requires a higher energy of particles needed to disintegrate this lattice. Studies carried out in the 1960s demonstrated that silicon carbide substantially surpasses silicon in the radiation hardness [1]. Later, with increasing structural perfection of SiC and decreasing level of background doping, the difference in radiation hardness between SiC and Si decreased. It is noteworthy that the decrease in radiation hardness with the increasing quality of material is also characteristic for other semiconductors. Various structural defects and uncontrollable impurities could serve as drains for radiation defects and, thereby, slow the degradation of material parameters.

However, statements started to appear in the literature suggesting that the radiation hardness of silicon carbide does not surpass, and is even inferior to that of silicon in certain conditions [2–5]. This conclusion seems to be surprising because the energy gap of 4H-SiC (3.2 eV) is nearly three times that of silicon. We found it interesting to consider the situation by using both our results and those of other researchers. Thus, the goal of the present study is to consider the issue of the radiation hardness of silicon carbide and compare it with the similar characteristic for Si.

Our work is focused on the results of high-temperature irradiation, due to the fact that a lot of works have been devoted to the study and analysis of the results of irradiation at room temperature. The great number of published studies are concerned with the radiation hardness of SiC MOSFETs against γirradiation [6–12]. The effect of room temperature electron irradiation on the properties of high-voltage 4H-SiC Schottky diodes also has been studied in many works [13–20]. The effect of room-temperature proton irradiation on the properties of 4H-SiC JBS has been extensively studied [21–28]. Consequently, in this work, we considered it expedient to focus on the results of our work in the field of high-temperature irradiation.
