TY - JOUR A1 - Miedema, Piter Sybren A1 - Beye, Martin A1 - Koennecke, R. A1 - Schiwietz, Gregor A1 - Föhlisch, Alexander T1 - Thermal evolution of the band edges of 6H-SiC: X-ray methods compared to the optical band gap JF - Journal of electron spectroscopy and related phenomena : the international journal on theoretical and experimental aspects of electron spectroscopy N2 - The band gap of semiconductors like silicon and silicon carbide (SIC) is the key for their device properties. In this research, the band gap of 6H-SiC and its temperature dependence were analyzed with silicon 2p X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), X-ray emission spectroscopy (XES) and resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) allowing for a separate analysis of the conduction-band minimum (CBM) and valence-band maximum (VBM) components of the band gap. The temperature-dependent asymmetric band gap shrinking of 6H-SiC was determined with a valence-band slope of +2.45 x 10(-4) eV/K and a conduction-band slope of -1.334 x 10(-4) eV/K. The apparent asymmetry, e.g., that two thirds of the band-gap shrinking with increasing temperature is due to the VBM evolution in 6H-SiC, is similar to the asymmetry obtained for pure silicon before. The overall band gap temperature-dependence determined with XAS and nonresonant XES is compared to temperature-dependent optical studies. The core-excitonic binding energy appearing in the Si 2p XAS is extracted as the main difference. In addition, the energy loss of the onset of the first band in RIXS yields to values similar to the optical band gap over the tested temperature range. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. KW - RIXS KW - XAS KW - XES KW - Semiconductors KW - Silicon carbide Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.elspec.2014.08.003 SN - 0368-2048 SN - 1873-2526 VL - 197 SP - 37 EP - 42 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER -