MBE growth of HgCdTe on GaSb substrates for application in next generation infrared detectors

Abstract

HgCdTe has dominated the high performance end of the IR detector market for decades. At present, the cost to fabricate HgCdTe based advanced infrared devices is relatively high. One approach to address this problem is to use cost effective alternative substrate, mainly Si and GaAs. Recently, GaSb has emerged as a new alternative with better lattice matching. In this paper, recent progress in molecular beam epitaxial (MBE) growth of HgCdTe infrared material at UWA is reported. HgCdTe has been grown on GaSb substrates by MBE, and has shown a lower Etch Pit Density (EPD) and higher minority carrier lifetime in comparison to other alternative substrates. This result makes GaSb an interesting and promising alternative substrate material for HgCdTe epitaxy.