[en] In this paper, we demonstrate a top-down fabrication technique for nanometre scale silicon carbide (SiC) pillars using inductively coupled plasma etching. A set of experiments in SF₆-based plasma was carried out in order to realize high aspect ratio SiC nanopillars. The etched SiC nanopillars using a small circular mask pattern (115 nm diameter) show high aspect ratio (7.4) with a height of 2.2 µm at an optimum bias voltage (300 V) and pressure (6 mTorr). Under the optimal etching conditions using a large circular mask pattern with 370 nm diameter, the obtained SiC nanopillars exhibit high anisotropy features (6.4) with a large etch depth (>7 µm). The etch characteristic of the SiC nanopillars under these conditions shows a high etch rate (550 nm min^-1) and a high selectivity (over 60 for Ni). We also studied the etch profile of the SiC nanopillars and mask evolution over the etching time. As the mask pattern size shrinks in nanoscale, vertical and lateral mask erosion plays a crucial role in the etch profile of the SiC nanopillars. Long etching process makes the pillars appear with a hexagonal shape, coming from the crystallographic structure of α-SiC. It is found that the feature of pillars depends not only on the etching process parameters, but also on the crystallographic structure of the SiC phase. (paper)

[en] This work reports on the label-free electrical detection of DNA molecules for the first time, using silicon carbide (SiC) as a novel material for the realization of nanowire field effect transistors (NWFETs). SiC is a promising semiconductor for this application due to its specific characteristics such as chemical inertness and biocompatibility. Non-intentionally n-doped SiC NWs are first grown using a bottom-up vapor–liquid–solid (VLS) mechanism, leading to the NWs exhibiting needle-shaped morphology, with a length of approximately 2 μ m and a diameter ranging from 25 to 60 nm. Then, the SiC NWFETs are fabricated and functionalized with DNA molecule probes via covalent coupling using an amino-terminated organosilane. The drain current versus drain voltage ( I _d– V _d) characteristics obtained after the DNA grafting and hybridization are reported from the comparative and simultaneous measurements carried out on the SiC NWFETs, used either as sensors or references. As a representative result, the current of the sensor is lowered by 22% after probe DNA grafting and by 7% after target DNA hybridization, while the current of the reference does not vary by more than ±0.6%. The current decrease confirms the field effect induced by the negative charges of the DNA molecules. Moreover, the selectivity, reproducibility, reversibility and stability of the studied devices are emphasized by de-hybridization, non-complementary hybridization and re-hybridization experiments. This first proof of concept opens the way for future developments using SiC-NW-based sensors. (paper)

[en] We present numerical simulations of gate-all-around (GAA) 3C-SiC and Si nanowire (NW) field effect transistors (FETs) using a full quantum self-consistent Poisson-Schroedinger algorithm within the non-equilibrium Green's function (NEGF) formalism. A direct comparison between Si and 3C-SiC device performances sheds some light on the different transport properties of the two materials. Effective mobility extraction has been performed in a linear transport regime and both phonon- (PH) and surface-roughness-(SR) limited mobility values were computed. 3C-SiC FETs present stronger acoustic phonon scattering, due to a larger deformation potential, resulting in lower phonon-limited mobility values. Although Si NW devices reveal a slightly better electrostatic control compared to 3C-SiC ones, SR-limited mobility shows a slower degradation with increasing charge density for 3C-SiC devices. This implies that the difference between Si and 3C-SiC device mobility is reduced at large gate voltages. 3C-SiC nanowires, besides their advantages compared to silicon ones, present electrical transport properties that are comparable to the Si case.

[en] Sublimation epitaxy under vacuum (SEV) was investigated as a method for growing 4H-SiC epitaxial structures for p–i–n diode fabrication. The SEV-grown 4H-SiC material was investigated with scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), x-ray diffraction, photo-luminescence spectroscopy (PL), cathodo-luminescence (CL) spectroscopy, photocurrent method for carrier diffusion length determination, electro-luminescence microscopy (EL), deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS), C–V profiling and Hall-effect measurements. When possible, the same investigation techniques were used in parallel with similar layers grown by chemical vapour deposition (CVD) epitaxy and the physical properties of the two kind of epitaxied layers were compared. p–i–n diodes were fabricated in parallel on SEV and CVD-grown layers and showed close electrical performances in dc mode in term of capacitance, resistance and transient time switching, despite the lower mobility and the diffusion length of the SEV-grown layers. X-band microwave switches based on the SEV-grown p–i–n diodes have been demonstrated with insertion loss lower than 4 dB and an isolation higher than 17 dB. These single-pole single-throw (SPST) switches were able to handle a pulsed power up to 1800 W in isolation mode, similar to the value obtained with switches incorporating diodes with CVD-grown layers