Recombination-induced passivation (RIP) experiments were conducted on p-type SiC after plasma treatment in deuterium. Higher sensitivity of SIMS to deuterium allowed us to confirm that recombination-induced athermal migration of hydrogen is indeed a driving mechanism for the RIP phenomenon. Hydrogen (or deuterium) athermally migrates from the plasma-induced hydrogen- or deuterium-reach near-surface layer down to more than a micron in depth, which under certain conditions creates a sufficiently thick layer of the n-type conductivity in the originally p-type epilayer. Thermal admittance spectroscopy was applied to investigate the defect levels in the top portion of the bandgap of the RIP-induced n-type layer. A few different levels located close to the conduction band of the originally p-type material were investigated.