On the possible role played by tunnel recombination in the loss processes of excess current carriers in cadmium telluride

Abstract

The microwave photoconductivity method was used to study the kinetics of the decay of current carriers generated by nitrogen laser pulses in n- and p-type cadmium telluride. The dependences of the shape and amplitude of photoresponse decays on temperature and light intensity were studied. Photoresponse decays contained “fast” (at t 50 ns) components. At long times, the dependence of photoresponse on the logarithm of time was linear. The shape of slow component decays was almost independent of temperature. The slow component of photoresponse decay could correspond to the loss process of entrapped charges in tunnel recombination.