Quantum electrometry in a silicon carbide power device

Quantum Physics [Submitted on 14 Mar 2026] Quantum electrometry in a silicon carbide power device Yuichi Yamazaki, Akira Kiyoi, Naoyuki Kawabata, Yuki Watanabe, Ryosuke Akashi, Shunsuke Daimon, Nobumasa Miyawaki, Yu-ichiro Matsushita, Makoto Kohda, Takeshi Ohshima For high-bias operation devices such as silicon carbide (SiC) power devices, early detection of failure mechanisms is essential to ensure reliability. This requires a method to map high electric fields with high spatial resolution, which has not been realized until now. Here we report that the silicon vacancy (Vsi) in SiC has outstanding characteristics for detecting electric fields applied in various directions within a high-biased SiC device. Vsi exhibits an equivalent response to electric field components parallel (Epara) and perpendicular (Eperp) to the c-axis, a feature unique among quantum sensors, and the responsiveness to Epara and Eperp enables detection of arbitrary electric fields encountered in cutting-edge SiC power devices. We confirmed high electric field detection of ~2.3 MV/cm, which is ~90% of the breakdown electric field of a 4H-SiC with typical carrier concentration. Selectively formed Vsi enables high-resolution mapping of electric field distribution. Vsi-based quantum sensors bring data-driven research and development methodologies as well as device degradation diagnosis. Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2603.13836 [quant-ph]   (or arXiv:2603.13836v1 [quant-ph] for this version)   https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.13836 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Yuichi Yamazaki [view email] [v1] Sat, 14 Mar 2026 08:44:28 UTC (11,207 KB) Access Paper: HTML (experimental) view license Current browse context: quant-ph < prev   |   next > new | recent | 2026-03 References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Export BibTeX Citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Demos Related Papers About arXivLabs Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)