Optical property of amorphous semiconductor mercury cadmium telluride from first-principles study

Abstract

The structural and optical properties of amorphous semiconductor mercury cadmium telluride (a-MCT) are obtained by the first principles calculations. The total pair distribution functions and the density of states show that the a-MCT has the semiconductor characteristic. The calculated results of dielectric function show that E2 peak of the imaginary of dielectric function for the crystal mercury cadmium telluride abruptly disappears in the amorphous case due to the long-range disorders. And the imaginary of dielectric function of a-MCT shows a large broad peak, which is in agreement with the available results of other amorphous semiconductors. From the linear extrapolation of the curve ħωɛ2(ω)1/2 versus ħω, it can be obtained that the optical energy gap of amorphous semiconductor Hg0.5Cd0.5Te is 0.51±0.05 eV.