Silicon carbide FETs for high temperature nuclear environments

SiC transistors can operate at very high temperatures and survive very high radiation doses. These characteristics make SiC potentially the ideal technology for nuclear power applications. In this paper we report, for the first time, on the active in-core irradiation of 6H-SiC depletion-mode junction field-effect transistors (IFETs) at 25° and 300°C in a nuclear reactor operated at 200 kW. No significant degradation in the device characteristics was observed until the total neutron fluence exceeded 10¹⁵ n/cm² for irradiation at 25°C, and no significant changes were observed even at 5×10¹⁵ n/cm² at 300°C. The results of this experiment may also indicate exciting evidence for the anneal of neutron displacement damage for devices irradiated at 300°C