Project Brief: General Electric, GE Global Research

NIST Measurement Science and Engineering Research Grants

NOVEL ELECTRICAL AND PHYSICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF THE SiC-SiO₂ INTERFACE

Develop novel measurement techniques to study the interface between silicon carbide (SiC) and silicon dioxide (SiO₂) in metal oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) devices designed to handle large amounts of power for rapidly routing electrical energy to customers from diverse sources such as wind and solar powered devices.

RECIPIENT: General Electric, GE Global Research, Niskayuna, NY

• Project duration: 3 Years
• Total NIST Funding: $1,500,000

GE Global Research and The Pennsylvania State University will develop novel measurement techniques to study the SiC-SiO₂ interface in silicon carbide power MOSFET devices. The team will develop measurement techniques based on pulsed gate Hall effect, electron spin resonance based, and synchrotron-based X-ray photoemission spectroscopy to characterize the electrical resistance of the SiC-SiO₂ interface. Reducing the interfacial resistance is a critical technical requirement for enabling SiC MOSFET devices to provide a quantum leap in efficiency, operating frequency, and operating temperature for processing electrical energy. These improvements will enable a key component to efficiently process energy from diverse variable sources such as wind- and solar-powered devices and rapidly route it to customers.

Public contact (for project information):

Todd Alhart, 518-387-7914
alhart [at] ge.com (alhart[at]ge[dot]com)

Project Partners: The Pennsylvania State University

NIST Program Office Contact:

Jason Boehm, 301-975-8678Jason.boehm [at] nist.gov (
Jason[dot]boehm[at]nist[dot]gov)