Active in-core irradiation of SiC JFETs at 300 C in a TRIGA nuclear reactor

In this paper the authors demonstrate that SiC transistors have the potential to operate in the severe high temperature and radiation environments of commercial and space nuclear power sources. 6H-SiC FETs were exposed to neutron fluxes and gamma dose rates as high as 1.6 {times} 10{sup 12} n/cm{sup 2}/sec and 3.8 {times} 10{sup 4} rad(Si)/sec while they were maintained under bias at both 300 C and room temperature within the core of a TRIGA reactor operated at 200 kW power level. The radiation exposure was continuous and the bias on the devices was interrupted only to record the current-voltage characteristics at various accumulated neutron fluences from 10{sup 13} to 5 {times} 10{sup 15} n/cm{sup 2}. No significant degradation in the device characteristics was observed until the total neutron fluence exceeded 10{sup 15} n/cm{sup 2} for irradiation at 25 C, and no significant changes were observed even at 5 {times} 10{sup 15} n/cm{sup 2} at 300 C

Large Area Silicon Carbide Vertical JFETs for 1200 V Cascode Switch Operation

SiC VJFETs are excellent candidates for reliable high-power/temperature switching as they only use pn junctions in the active device area where the high-electric fields occur. VJFETs do not suffer from forward voltage degradation, exhibit excellent short-circuit performance, and operate at 300°C. 0.19 cm2 1200 V normally-on and 0.15 cm2 low-voltage normally-off VJFETs were fabricated. The 1200-V VJFET outputs 53 A with a forward drain voltage drop of 2 V and a specific onstate resistance of 5.4 mΩ cm2. The low-voltage VJFET outputs 28 A with a forward drain voltage drop of 3.3 V and a specific onstate resistance of 15 mΩ cm2. The 1200-V SiC VJFET was connected in the cascode configuration with two Si MOSFETs and with a low-voltage SiC VJFET to form normally-off power switches. At a forward drain voltage drop of 2.2 V, the SiC/MOSFETs cascode switch outputs 33 A. The all-SiC cascode switch outputs 24 A at a voltage drop of 4.7 V

Analysis of neutron damage in high-temperature silicon carbide JFETs

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