Effect of Boron Incorporation on Slow Interface Traps in SiO2/4H-SiC Structures

The reason for the effective removal of interface traps in SiO2/4H-SiC (0001) structures by boron (B) incorporation was investigated by employing low-temperature electrical measurements. Low-temperature capacitance–voltage and thermal dielectric relaxation current measurements revealed that the density of electrons captured in slow interface traps in B-incorporated oxide is lower than that in dry and NO-annealed oxides. These results suggest that near-interface traps can be removed by B incorporation, which is considered to be an important reason for the increase in the field-effect mobility of 4H-SiC metal–oxide–semiconductor devices. A model for the passivation mechanism is proposed that takes account of stress relaxation during thermal oxidation

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead