Design and processing of silicon and silicon carbide sensors

Downscaling of transistors, also known as Moore’s law, has been the main propelling force behind the microelectronics industry. This trend will eventually come to an end due to physical limitations, hence an alternative is required to further drive technological progress. This gave an incentive to evolve in other directions as well, also known as More than Moore (MtM). This concerns all technologies adding functionality to integrated circuits (IC), all packaged as a single system. This can be done by combining digital and non-digital elements, e.g. analog/RF, passives, microelectromechanical devices (MEMS), and so on. The non-digital elements are not necessarily scalable according to Moore’s law. Therefore, in this thesis we investigated the possibilities of using silicon and silicon carbide (SiC) to fabricate a number of sensors, capable of measuring weak signals. This is done by having a multidisciplinary investigation spanning from electrical, to mechanical and optical domains.