Ni-Silicide Ohmic Contacts on 4H-SiC Formed by Multi Pulse Excimer Laser Annealing

The formation of ohmic contacts by laser annealing approach is of great importance for SiC power devices, since it allows their fabrication on thin substrates, that is of crucial significance to reduce power dissipation. Ni silicide reaction under UV laser irradiation has been studied in detail with particular focus on single pulse approach, in order to describe the early stage of reaction process. The use of a multi pulse approach, for the formation of Ni silicide-based ohmic contacts by means of excimer laser annealing, has been investigated in this work. The reaction process has been characterized, as a function of number of pulses, by means of X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) analysis. Laser process simulations, formulated in the framework of phase-field theory, have been performed in order to predict the evolution of material during reaction under annealing. Simulations show that reaction moves to Si-rich phases with increasing number of pulses, with a co-existence of Ni2Si and Ni3Si2 phases for the three pulses process. Moreover, simulations show critical differences, in terms of the uniformity of the distribution of the silicide phases along the film, between the single pulse and the multi pulses cases and the increasing of thickness of silicide phases with the pulse sequence. These predictions are in good agreement with the findings of XRD and TEM analyses. The electrical properties of the reacted layer have been evaluated on Schottky Barrier Diodes (SBD) devices, confirming the ohmic behaviour of multi pulse annealed samples.