Lightly doped silicon carbide wafer and use thereof in high power devices

A semiconductor device, comprising:

• a drift zone of a first conductivity type serving as a substrate layer having a front side and a back side,
• a first contact electrode arranged at the front side of the drift zone,
• a control region arranged at the front side and controlling an injection of carriers of at least the first conductivity type into the drift zone, and
• a second contact electrode at the backside of the drift zone,
• wherein the drift zone is arranged to carry a carrier flow between the first and the second contact electrode, and wherein the drift zone comprises a silicon carbide wafer with a net carrier concentration less than 1015 cm−3 and a carrier lifetime of at least 50 ns, and wherein the silicon carbide wafer has a surface forming the front side or the back side surface of the drift zone and being off-oriented towards a Miller index direction with an off-axis angle less than 1 degree.