Growth of HgCdTe by Modified Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE)

Abstract

An investigation was made on the deposition of HgCdTe thin film on CdTe by irradiating the bulk source material with high power laser pulses. The morphological features and stoichiometric composition depend very strongly on the laser characteristics and the scanning rate. Under very high power operation, the dominant deposition process is the condensation of micron size molten globules 'blown-off' from the source material. At lower power level, the film formation is largely due to the deposition of small molecular clusters. Compositional analysis of the film showed that the CdTe end of the alloy evaporated congruently, whereas the HgTe and end suffered some loss of Hg. The amount of Hg loss could be reduced by varying the laser power and the scanning rate. n-type films up to 2 micron thick were deposited in this manner and photoconductive devices were fabricated and measured. We have also made a detailed mass spectrometric study of the evaporant composition under different conditions. A model on the evaporation mechanism formulated from such information will be discussed.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 1980
Accession Number
ADA083799

Entities

People

  • J. T. Cheung

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Compound Semiconductors
  • Contracts
  • Detection
  • Electrical Properties
  • Evaporation
  • Films
  • Laser Beams
  • Laser Pulses
  • Lasers
  • Low Temperature
  • Mass Spectra
  • Materials
  • Measurement
  • Peak Power
  • Spectra
  • Surface Temperature
  • Thin Films

Fields of Study

  • Materials science

Readers

  • Combustion science or combustion engineering.
  • Pulsed Power and Plasma Physics.
  • Thin Film Deposition Science.

Technology Areas

  • Directed Energy
  • Directed Energy - Pulsed-Laser Deposition