Identification of the carbon antisite-vacancy pair in 4H-SiC.

The metastability of vacancies was theoretically predicted for several compound semiconductors alongside their transformation into the antisite-vacancy pair counterpart; however, no experiment to date has unambiguously confirmed the existence of antisite-vacancy pairs. Using electron paramagnetic resonance and first principles calculations we identify the S15 center as the carbon antisite-vacancy pair in the negative charge state (C(Si)V-(C)) in 4H-SiC. We suggest that this defect is a strong carrier-compensating center in n-type or high-purity semi-insulating SiC.