Experimental determination of electron-hole pair creation energy in 4H-SiC epitaxial layer: An absolute calibration approach

Abstract

Electron-hole pair creation energy (ε) has been determined from alpha spectroscopy using 4H-SiC epitaxial layer Schottky detectors and a pulser calibration technique. We report an experimentally obtained ε value of 7.28 eV in 4H-SiC. The obtained ε value and theoretical models were used to calculate a Fano factor of 0.128 for 5.48 MeV alpha particles. The contributions of different factors to the ultimate alpha peak broadening in pulse-height spectra were determined using the calculated ε value and Monte-Carlo simulations. The determined ε value was verified using a drift-diffusion model of variation of charge collection efficiency with applied bias.