High-performance LWIR MBE-grown HgCdTe/Si focal plane arrays

• Published in: Journal of electronic materials Vol. 36; no. 8; pp. 1085 - 1091
• Main Authors: BORNFREUND, Richard, ROSBECK, Joe P, DELYON, Terry J, JENSEN, John E, TIDROW, Meimei Z, THAI, Yen N, SMITH, Edward P, LOFGREEN, Daniel D, VILELA, Mauro F, BUELL, Aimee A, NEWTON, Michael D, KOSAI, Kenneth, JOHNSON, Scott M
• Format: Conference Proceeding Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers 01.08.2007; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Arrays; Condensed matter: structure, mechanical and thermal properties; Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science; rheology; Electronics; Exact sciences and technology; Infrared radiation; Materials science; Mercury cadmium telluride; Methods of deposition of films and coatings; film growth and epitaxy; Molecular beam epitaxy; Molecular, atomic, ion, and chemical beam epitaxy; Optoelectronic devices; Other semiconductors; Physical properties of thin films, nonelectronic; Physics; Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices; Silicon; Specific materials; Substrates; Surfaces and interfaces; thin films and whiskers (structure and nonelectronic properties); Thermal stability; thermal effects; Interfacial layer; molecular beam epitaxy (MBE); Material processing; Zinc tellurides; p n heterojunctions; Integrated circuits; mercury cadmium telluride (HgCdTe); Alternative substrate; Cadmium tellurides; Wafers; Thermal expansion coefficient; Molecular beam epitaxy; HgCdTe/Si; Mercury tellurides; Silicon; focal plane array (FPA); silicon substrate; Buffer layer; High performance; Focal plane arrays; long-wavelength infrared (LWIR); Active layer; large format; Photodetectors; Quantum yield; II-VI semiconductors; Growth mechanism
• ISSN: 0361-5235; 1543-186X
• DOI: 10.1007/s11664-007-0177-6

We have been actively pursuing the development of long-wavelength infrared (LWIR) HgCdTe grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) on large-area silicon substrates. The current effort is focused on extending HgCdTe/Si technology to longer wavelengths and lower temperatures. The use of Si versus bulk CdZnTe substrates is being pursued due to the inherent advantages of Si, which include available wafer sizes (as large as 300 mm), lower cost (both for the substrates and number of die per wafer), compatibility with semiconductor processing equipment, and the match of the coefficient of thermal expansion with silicon read-out integrated circuit (ROIC). Raytheon has already demonstrated low-defect, high-quality MBE-grown HgCdTe/Si as large as 150 mm in diameter. The focal plane arrays (FPAs) presented in this paper were grown on 100 mm diameter (211)Si substrates in a Riber Epineat system. The basic device structure is an MBE-grown p-on-n heterojunction device. Growth begins with a CdTe/ZnTe buffer layer followed by the HgCdTe active device layers; the entire growth process is performed in-situ to maintain clean interfaces between the various layers. In this experiment the cutoff wavelengths were varied from 10.0 mum to 10.7 mum at 78 K. Detectors with > 50% quantum efficiency and R 0 A ~1000 Ohms cm were obtained, with 256 X 256, 30 mum focal plane arrays from these detectors demonstrating response operabilities > 99%.