This paper reports on the conduction mechanisms and trapping effects in SiO2/4H-SiC MOS-based devices subjected to post deposition annealing in N 2 O. In particular, the anomalous Fowler-Nordheim (FN) tunnelling through the SiO 2/4H-SiC barrier observed under consecutive reverse bias sweeps was studied by temperature and time dependent gate current measurements. The excess of gate current with respect to the theoretical FN predictions was explained by a charge-discharge mechanism of Near Interface Traps ( ...