HEAVY ION RADIATION TESTS OF SILICON CARBIDE SIC POWER DIODES AND MOSFETS HAVE REVEALED TWO UNEXPECTED PHENOMENA SUCH AS DISCRETE PERMANENT INCREASES IN OFF STATE CURRENT WITH EACH ION STRIKE AND A SINGLE EVENT-BURNOUT SEB TYPE OF HARD FAILURE WHERE OFF STATE CURRENT INCREASES SUDDENLY TO DESTRUCTIVE LEVELS AFTER AN ION STRIKE AT BIAS LEVELS ONLY A FRACTION OF THE DEVICE MAXIMUM VOLTAGE RATING. EXPERIMENTALLY OBSERVED HEAVY ION BEHAVIOR IN SIC IS NOT CURRENTLY CAPTURED IN POISSON SOLVER TECHNOLOGY COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN TCAD FINITE ELEMENT SIMULATION PROGRAMS. PHYSICAL MECHANISMS INVOLVED ARE NOT WELL UNDERSTOOD AND MODEL EQUATIONS FOR THOSE MECHANISMS MAY NOT BE INCORPORATED EVEN IN STATE OF THE ART TCAD SIMULATORS. IT IS UNCLEAR WHY THE HEAVY ION RESPONSE OF SIC DEVICES DIFFERS SO MUCH FROM THAT OF SILICON POWER DIODES AND MOSFETS. EXPLANATIONS INCLUDE THE WIDE BAND GAP AND COMPLEX BAND STRUCTURE OF SIC THE ANISOTROPIC STRUCTURE OF THE SIC CRYSTAL LATTICE DEFECTS AND LOCAL DISRUPTION OF THE CRYSTAL STRUCTURE BY THE ENERGY DEPOSITION OF THE HEAVY ION. THE MAIN OBJECTIVE OF THIS WORK IS TO IDENTIFY THE PHYSICAL MECHANISMS IN THE HEAVY ION RESPONSE OF SILICON CARBIDE THROUGH PHYSICAL DEVICE ANALYSIS ELECTRICAL AND RADIATION TESTING AND DEVICE SIMULATION AND TO DEVELOP NEW PHYSICS MODELS FOR TCAD DEVICE SIMULATION SOFTWARE. IN THIS PROPOSAL WE DEMONSTRATE THAT TWO POWER DIODES WITH SIMILAR GREATER THAN 1000 V BREAKDOWN VOLTAGES AND THE SAME DIMENSIONS ONE SILICON AND ONE SIC HAVE SIGNIFICANTLY DIFFERENT CURRENT PULSE RESPONSE TO AN IDENTICAL ION STRIKE IN CURRENT TCAD MODELS. THE SIC CURRENT PULSE IS ABOUT 20 TIMES HIGHER THAN THE SILICON PULSE AND LASTS ABOUT 2 TIMES LONGER. WE WILL INVESTIGATE WHY THE SAME ION SEEMS TO GENERATE VERY DIFFERENT RESPONSES EVEN WITH CONVENTIONAL MODELS IN SIC AND SILICON. ONE HYPOTHESIS FOR THE DESTRUCTIVE RESPONSE OF SIC POWER DIODES IS THAT HEAVY IONS DEPOSIT SUCH HIGH ENERGY DENSITY THE SIC CRYSTAL LATTICE IS DISRUPTED. THIS HYPOTHESIS IS HARD TO TEST IN TCAD SIMULATION. INVESTIGATING THE PHYSICS OF THIS HYPOTHESIS IS ONE OBJECTIVE FOR THIS WORK. OPEN QUESTIONS INCLUDE WHY THE SAME EFFECT IS NOT KNOWN TO OCCUR IN SILICON AND IF THE MODEL HOLDS TRUE WHAT ARE THE ALTERED MATERIAL PROPERTIES OF A POSSIBLY POLYCRYSTALLINE STRUCTURE AFTER MELTING OCCURS. WE WILL EVALUATE THE ROLES OF CARRIER ENERGY AND ENERGY TRANSFERRED TO THE LATTICE IN SIC DEVICES. ANISOTROPIC CARRIER TRANSPORT AND AVALANCHE MODELS WILL BE EMPLOYED. HYDRODYNAMIC ELECTROTHERMAL CARRIER TRANSPORT EQUATIONS WHICH INCORPORATE CARRIER TEMPERATURE INTO THE TRANSPORT WILL BE USED TO CAPTURE THERMAL EFFECTS DUE TO THE LOCAL ENERGY DEPOSITION OF THE ION. WE WILL INVESTIGATE WHETHER CURRENT ELECTRO THERMAL TCAD DEVICE MODELS CAPTURE THE ACTUAL PHYSICS AT WORK IN A HEAVY ION STRIKE IN SIC DEVICES. WE WILL CONDUCT ELECTRICAL AND RADIATION EXPERIMENTS THAT DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN THE PHYSICAL MECHANISMS INFLUENCING THE HEAVY ION RESPONSE OF SIC DEVICES. THERE IS ALREADY A WEALTH OF PUBLISHED HEAVY ION DATA ON SIC POWER DEVICES AS A FUNCTION OF ION ENERGY REVERSE BIAS ANGLE OF INCIDENCE AND ION SPECIES. WE WILL DESIGN EXPERIMENTS THAT EVALUATE THE EFFECTS OF PARTICULAR PHYSICAL MECHANISMS ON THE HEAVY ION RESPONSE OF SIC DEVICES. THE EXPERIMENTS WILL BE CONDUCTED BY OUR COLLABORATORS AT THE RADEF HEAVY ION FACILITY AT THE UNIVERSITY IN FINLAND FUNDED BY PROGRAMS AT RADEF AND THE EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY. WE WILL DO DESTRUCTIVE TESTING OF THE DEVICE SUCH AS FIB AND SEM ON THE IRRADIATED DEVICES. ONCE PHYSICAL MECHANISMS OF ION STRIKES IN SIC POWER DEVICES ARE WELL UNDERSTOOD MITIGATION MEASURES BY DEVICE MANUFACTURERS CAN BE UNDERTAKEN TO MAKE THE NEXT GENERATION OF SIC DEVICES LESS VULNERABLE TO SINGLE-EVENT EFFECTS. SPACECRAFT DESIGNERS WILL HAVE ACCESS TO HIGH VOLTAGE EFFICIENT RELIABLE POWER DEVICES WITH HIGH POWER DENSITIES AND SMALL VOLUMES FOR POWER CONVERSION AND PMAD INFRASTRUCTURE.