Crystalline lattice defects, e.g. vacancies, interstitials or substitutional ions, play an important role in the conductivity and dielectric properties of electronic ceramics. The material “defect chemistry” can be tuned to optimize the electronic and ionic conductivities for particular applications via doping, oxygen-activity and temperature control during processing. Beyond controlling the majority defect (carrier) concentrations, it is also important to control the minority defect concentrations as these can be especially relevant to the time-dependent electrical behavior. For example, applied electric fields in device applications provide a strong driving force for the electromigration of charged lattice defects. Furthermore, external conditions such as humidity, which can lead to proton incorporation, can also strongly influence time-dependent material properties. This talk will review our current understanding and implications of point defect equilibria, partial equilibria and dynamics in several prototypical electronic ceramics. Recent efforts to effectively co-dope dielectric materials to improve simultaneously limit both the electronic and ionic conductivity will be discussed.

Ultra-wide band gap semiconductors present one avenue for the next generation of semiconductor devices. Diamond, specifically, has shown promise in high power, frequency, and temperature electronics; however, issues with impurity doping has limited the development of diamond-based devices. Instead, surface charge transfer doping (SCTD), which avoids introduction of foreign atoms into the diamond lattice, has been used for inducing a two-dimensional hole gas at the diamond surface thus increasing its conductivity. The established method to achieve SCTD is to hydrogen-terminate the diamond surface prior to the addition of an electron acceptor layer; however, the degree of SCTD induced by H-termination is largely dependent on atmospheric exposure. Alternatively, silicon-termination of the diamond surface has been shown to produce the ordered surface with the negative electron affinity necessary for the SCTD mechanism. In this work, we investigate the combination of Si-terminated diamond with a Nb_xO_y electron acceptor layer, wherein we focus on understanding interface formation and chemistries, as well as elucidating if the band alignment mechanism is responsible for SCTD for this material system. Ultra-high vacuum (UHV) electron beam (e-beam) deposition of Si onto diamond substrates was carried out, followed by UHV annealing to produce the Si-terminated (100) diamond surface. X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) of core-level and valence band spectra was used to analyze chemical composition. To form the electron acceptor layer, Nb films were e-beam deposited onto the Si-terminated diamond surface by depositing Nb under varying oxygen partial pressures. XPS was used to observe how interfacial chemistry, electronic structure, and band alignment evolve with different Nb_xO_y compositions. The air stability of the electron acceptor layers was also investigated after atmospheric exposure via XPS. Analysis of the valence band spectra shows that band alignment would not result in SCTD for the Nb_xO_y/Si/diamond material system.

We have utilized both electrically detected magnetic resonance(EDMR) and near zero field magnetoresistance (NZFMR) spectroscopy to investigate the physics involved in instabilities such as stress induced leakage currents and time dependent dielectric breakdown in Si/SiO₂ and SiC/ SiO₂ systems. Both techniques are extremely sensitive and extend the sensitivity of conventional electron spin based techniques down to near nanoscale device structures. We find that the very simple spin-based NZFMR technique has significant analytical power in these investigations. The NZFMR studies can complement the more established EDMR measurements with simple and relatively inexpensive apparatus.