Mid wavelength infrared (MWIR) HgCdTe heterostructures were grown on 3-inch dia Si (211) substrates by the molecular beam epitaxy technique and p+n format devices were fabricated by arsenic ion implantation. Very long wavelength infrared (VLWIR) layers have been employed as interfacial layers to block the propagation of detects from the substrate interface into the HgCdTe epilayers. Excellent material characteristics including the minority carrier lifetime of 7.2 usec at 200K and 2 usec at 80K in the n-HgCdTe absorber layer with 5 um cut-off wavelength at 80K were achieved. The photovoltaic detectors fabricated on these MWIR heterostructures show excellent zero-bias resistance-area product (R0A) on the order of 108 ohm-cm2 and peak dynamic impedances on the order of 109 ohm-cm2. A two-step arsenic activation anneal followed by the 'Hg' vacancy filling anneal (third step) is shown to produce the best R0A values, since the intermediate temperature annealing step seems to control the diffusion of arsenic, assisted by the implantation-induced defects. The experimental R0A values are compared with that predicted by theory based on a one-dimensional model, indicating g-r limited performance of these MWIR devices at 80K.
Very long wavelength infrared (VLWIR, λc approximately 20 to 50 μm) HgTe/HgCdTe superlattices were grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). The layers were characterized by means of X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Photoconductive interdigitated electrode detectors for heterodyne applications in the Far-infrared wavelengths (FIR) regions were designed and fabricated. Spectral response measurements exhibit the ability of these detectors to function in the long wavelength (LWIR) to VLWIR regions. Detectivity observed at 77 K is very encouraging and could be enhanced further at lower operating temperatures.
The cost and performance of hybrid HgCdTe infrared focal plane arrays are constrained by the necessity of fabricating the detector arrays on a CdZnTe substrate. These substrates are expensive, fragile, are available only in small rectangular formats, and are not a good thermal expansion match to the silicon readout integrated circuit. We discuss in this paper an infrared sensor technology based on monolithically integrated infrared focal plane arrays that could replace the conventional hybrid focal plane array technology. We have investigated the critical issues related to the growth of HgCdTe on Si read-out integrated circuits and the fabrication of monolithic focal plane arrays: (1) the design of Si read-out integrated circuits and focal plane array layouts, (2) the low temperature cleaning of Si(001) wafers, (3) growth of CdTe and HgCdTe layers on read-out integrated circuits, (4) array fabrication, interconnection between focal plane array and read-out integrated circuit input nodes and demonstration of the photovoltaic operation, and (5) maintenance of the read-out integrated circuit characteristics after substrate cleaning, molecular beam epitaxy growth and device fabrication. Crystallographic, optical and electrical properties of the grown layers are presented. Electrical properties for diodes fabricated on misoriented Si and read-out integrated circuit substrates are discussed. The fabrication of arrays with demonstrated I-V properties show that monolithic integration of HgCdTe-based infrared focal plane arrays on Si read-out integrated circuits is feasible and could be implemented in the 3rd generation of infrared systems.
II-VI intrinsic very long wavelength infrared (VLWIR, λc~20 to 50 μm) materials, HgCdTe alloys as well as HgCdTe/CdTe superlattices, were grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). The layers were characterized by means of X-ray diffraction, conventional Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, Hall effect measurements and transmittance electron microscopy (TEM). Photoconductor devices were processed and their spectral response was also measured to demonstrate their applicability in the VLWIR region.
The advantages of mercury cadmium telluride for 'HOT' IR detector applications are discussed. Molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) is used to grow advanced device structures for this purpose. MBE offers the potential to grow HgCdTe heterostructure layers on large silicon substrates leading to very large format and high performance IR focal plane array sin the future. Preliminary material and device properties achieved p+-v-n+ device structures grown on 3 inch oriented silicon wafers are discussed.
The narrow gap semiconductor HgCdTe is commonly used for IR detection. Conventional HgCdTe IR detectors need significant cooling in order to reduce noise and leakage currents resulting from thermal generation and recombination processes. These cooling requirements considerably increase the cost, size, weight and complexity of infrared systems. The need for cooling to reduce noise and leakage currents resulting from Auger processes has long been thought to be fundamental and inevitable. However, recently, it has been suggested that by means of a steady-state non-equilibrium mode of operation, which holds the carrier densities below their equilibrium values, Auger generation and even radiative generation rates can be reduced. This is possible through the reduction of carrier concentrations because the Auger generation rate depends approximately on the square of the carrier concentration and radiative recombination rate depends linearly on it. This paper reports the modeling of a HgCdTe detector operated in a steady-state non-equilibrium mode at 230 approximately equals 295 K. The device architecture, NvP+, which is practical in MBE growth, is suitable for this application. Radiative and Auger lifetimes, zero surface recombination velocities, and zero background photon fluxes are assumed. The dependence of detectivity on minority carrier extraction efficiency is studied in this paper. At 230 and 250 K for ND equals 1 X 1014approximately equals 15 cm-3, the detectivity appears to become saturated at values in the order of 1010 cm Hz1/2/W when the minority carrier extraction efficiency is greater than 3.
Two different effects of annealing, 1) on the arsenic activation in the in-situ doped mercury cadmium telluride (HgCdTe) layers grown on silicon substrates by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) and 2) on the CdTe passivant-HgCdTe interface leading to significant changes in the characteristics of metal-insulator-HgCdTe (MIS) and planar photovoltaic (PV) detectors are discussed here. On the arsenic activation, highly compensated n-type properties to 100 percent activation of arsenic up to a total arsenic concentration of 1-2 X 1018 cm-3 and a decrease in activation thereafter are observed for annealing temperatures in the range of 235 to 450 degrees C. A range of annealing effects varying from unidentified structural defects acting as donors, probably due to donor arsenic tetramers or donor tetramers or donor tetramer clusters at 235 degrees C, to dissociation of bonds of neutral arsenic tetramer clusters to enable arsenic to occupy Te sites and behave as acceptors at 450 degrees C, are invoked to explain the arsenic activation mechanisms. The activation annealing, on the other hand, was found to have detrimental effect on the passivant-HgCdTe interface, possibility due to mercury diffusion during post-implant annealing. Capacitance-Voltage of MIS devices and current-voltage characteristics of planar diodes show tunneling limited performance with in-situ grown CdTe after annealing and show dramatic improvement in the performance characteristics when the in-situ grown CdTe is chemically removed and fresh CdTe passivation layer grown by MBE after arsenic activation annealing. Test structures containing mini arrays of square diodes with variable areas from 5.76 X 10-6 cm2 to 2.5 X 10-3 cm2 and MIS devices are used to establish the aforementioned effect. Under optimized conditions, state-of- the-art performance of the diodes in the mid-wavelength IR region with dynamic impedance on the order of 107 Ohm- cm2 is demonstrated.
The noise-equivalent-temperature difference (NETD) is calculated in fixed-pattern-noise-limited mercury cadmium telluride (MCT) focal-plane arrays (FPA5) for both 3- to 5-μm and 8- to 14-μm terrestrial imaging applications, on the basis of a model for MCT in which a linear two-point compensation scheme is considered. The contributions to the NETD from the fixed-pattern noise of an array-in terms of gain, offset, and residual error-are calculated and taken in quadrature to obtain the NETD of the FPA. The effect of stability of the focal-plane temperature is included, but the contribution of readout is not considered. The largest contribution to the NETD is from the residual error in the compensation scheme. Decreasing the intrascene temperature difference and including a sharp-cutoff filter are shown to decrease the NETD. The composition has been varied so as to obtain the lowest NETD in each band: at x = 0.31 in the 3- to 5-μm band, and at x = 0.22 to 0.23 in the 8- to 14- μm band (where x is the composition in the alloy Hg1-xCdxTe).
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