Silicon carbide structures are fabricated by fabricating a nitrided oxide layer on a layer of silicon carbide and annealing the nitrided oxide layer in an environment containing hydrogen. Such a fabrication of the nitrided oxide layer may be provided by forming the oxide layer in at least one of nitric oxide and nitrous oxide and/or annealing an oxide layer in at least one of nitric oxide and nitrous oxide. Alternatively, the nitrided oxide layer may be provided by fabricating an oxide layer and fabricating a nitride layer on the oxide layer so as to provide the nitrided oxide layer on which the nitride layer is fabricated. Furthermore, annealing the oxide layer may be provided as a separate step and/or substantially concurrently with another step such as fabricating the nitride layer or performing a contact anneal. The hydrogen environment may be pure hydrogen, hydrogen combined with other gases and/or result from a hydrogen precursor. Anneal temperatures of 400.degree. C. or greater are preferred.
The present application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/968,391 entitled "METHOD OF N.sub.2O GROWTH OF AN OXIDE LAYER ON A SILICON CARBIDE LAYER" filed Oct. 1, 2001, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,767,843 which claims priority from U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/294,307 entitled "METHOD OF N.sub.2O GROWTH OF AN OXIDE LAYER ON A SILICON CARBIDE LAYER" filed May 30, 2001 and claims priority from, and is a continuation-in-part of, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/834,283, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,610,366, filed Apr. 12, 2001 entitled "METHOD OF N.sub.2O ANNEALING AN OXIDE LAYER ON A SILICON CARBIDE LAYER" which claims priority from U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/237,822, entitled "METHOD OF IMPROVING AN INTERFACE BETWEEN A SILICON CARBIDE LAYER AND AN OXIDE LAYER" and U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/237,426 entitled "SIC POWER MOSFET AND METHOD OF FABRICATION" which were filed Oct. 3, 2000. The disclosures of each of the above-cited applications are incorporated herein by reference as if set forth fully herein.
