Observation of in-plane shear stress fields in off-axis SiC wafers by birefringence imaging.

For the nondestructive characterization of SiC wafers for power device application, birefringence imaging is one of the promising methods. In the present study, it is demonstrated that birefringence image contrast variation in off-axis SiC wafers corresponds to the in-plane shear stress under conditions slightly deviating from crossed Nicols according to both theoretical consideration and experimental observation. The current results indicate that the characterization of defects in SiC wafers is possible to achieve by birefringence imaging.