Electrophysical Properties of p-Type Undoped and Arsenic-Doped Hg1 – x Cd x Te Epitaxial Layers with x ≈ 0.4 Grown by the MOCVD Method

• Published in: Semiconductors (Woodbury, N.Y.) Vol. 52; no. 6; pp. 702 - 707
• Main Authors: Evstigneev, V S, Varavin, V S, Chilyasov, A V, Remesnik, V G, Moiseev, A N, Stepanov, B S
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer Nature B.V 01.01.2018
• Subjects: Activation; Annealing; Arsenic; Augers; Carrier density; Current carriers; Epitaxial growth; Epitaxial layers; Interdiffusion; Ionization; Metalorganic chemical vapor deposition; Minority carriers; Multilayers; Organic chemistry; Radiative recombination
• ISSN: 1063-7826; 1090-6479
• DOI: 10.1134/S1063782618060052

The temperature dependences of the charge-carrier concentration and lifetime of minority carriers in undoped and arsenic-doped p-type Hg1 – xCdxTe epitaxial layers with x ≈ 0.4 grown by the MOCVD-IMP (metalorganic chemical vapor deposition–interdiffusion multilayer process) method are studied. It is shown that the temperature dependences of the charge-carrier concentration can be described by a model assuming the presence of one acceptor and one donor level. The ionization energies of acceptors in the undoped and arsenic-doped materials are 14 and 3.6 meV, respectively. It is established that the dominant recombination mechanism in the undoped layers is Shockley–Read–Hall recombination, and after low-temperature equilibrium annealing in mercury vapors (230°C, 24 h), the dominant mechanism is radiative recombination. The fundamental limitation of the lifetime in the arsenic-doped material is caused by the Auger-7 process. Activation annealing (360°C, 2 h) of the doped layers makes it possible to attain the 100% activation of arsenic.