Te-rich liquid phase epitaxial growth of HgCdTe on Si-based substrates

Abstract

The growth of high quality (111)B oriented HgCdTe layers on CdZnTe/GaAs/Si and CdTe/Si substrates by Te-rich slider liquid phase epitaxy (LPE) is reported. Although the (111) orientation is susceptible to twinning, a reproducible process yielding twin-free layers with excellent surface morphology has been developed. The electrical properties and dislocation density in films grown on these substrates are comparable to those measured in HgCdTe layers grown on bulk CdTe substrates using the same LPE process. This is surprising in view of the large lattice mismatch that exists in these systems. We will report details of both the substrate and HgCdTe growth processes that are important to obtaining these results.