fig1 is a flow chart of an electrical contact process 10 for making electrical contact to silicon carbide sic at step 102 a silicon carbide sample is inserted into a gaseous ambient containing selected dopants the silicon carbide sample may be for example a bulk silicon carbide wafer or wafer fragment or a layer or region of sic formed on a substrate made of a different material such as silicon or sapphire the silicon carbide sample may also be a silicon carbide structure incorporated into an electronic or photonic device or into a microelectromechanical system mems the silicon carbide sample typically has a conductivity of a given type either n type or p type depending on whether it contains acceptor or donor impurities or dopants the dopants in the gaseous ambient are selected to match the predominant impurity type in the silicon carbide sample the gaseous ambient may be any gas that contains acceptor or donor impurities appropriate to silicon carbide such as boron phosphorous nitrogen arsenic aluminum and the like the gas may be for example boron trifluoride arsenic pentafluoride and the like at step 104 the surface of the silicon carbide sample is exposed to photon energy sufficient to melt the surface of the silicon carbide sample dissociate the gaseous ambient and diffuse the dopants into the molten sic at step 106 the molten silicon carbide surface is recrystallized at the ambient temperature fig2 is a flow chart of an electrical junction process 20 for making an electrical junction in silicon carbide steps 202 204 and 206 are similar to steps 102 104 and 106 of the electrical contact process in fig1 except that the dopants in the gaseous ambient are selected to have the opposite conductivity.