Photochemical Organometallic Vapor Phase Epitaxy Of Mercury Cadmium Telluride

Abstract

Because of the difficulty in preparing single-crystalline Hg1−xCdx Te with adequate control of properties for detector array manufacturing, the emphasis in material development has shifted to epitaxial techniques, such as molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), liquid phase epitaxy (LPE), and organometallic vapor phase epitaxy (OMVPE, sometimes called MOCVD). Each of the epitaxial techniques thus far reported has fundamental limitations such as a requirement for high growth temperature (LPE and OMVPE) or low growth rates (MBE). We report here preliminary results on a new technique, called photochemical organometallic vapor phase epitaxy (POMVPE), which apparently does not have the limitations of other epitaxial methods for growing Hg Cd Te films.