Improved local oxidation of silicon carbide using atomic force microscopy

摘要

The atomic force microscopy-based local oxidation u0001AFM-LOu0002 of silicon carbide u0001SiCu0002 is extremelyndifficult in general, mainly due to their physical hardness and chemical inactivity. Herein, we reportnthe strongly enhanced AFM-LO of 4H-SiC at room temperature without the heating, chemicals ornphotoillumination. It is demonstrated that the increased tip loading force u0001u0003u0001100 nNu0002 on thenhighly doped SiC can produce a high enough electric field u0001u00038u0002106nV/cmu0002 under the cathode tipnfor transporting oxyanions, thereby leading to direct oxide growth on 4H-SiC. The dopingnconcentration and electric field profile of the tip-SiC sample structures were further examined byntwo-dimensional numerical simulations. © 2010 American Institute of Physics.