Theoretical utmost performance of (100) mid-wave HgCdTe photodetectors

Abstract

HgCdTe detectors designed to detect mid-wavelength (3–5 μm) infrared radiation must be cooled to reach the required performance. The cooling requirement makes the sensor system both expensive and bulky and the fundamental goal is to reach higher operating temperature condition preserving near background limited performance with high detectivity and high speed response at the same time. In order to reach higher operating temperature condition the thermal generation rate must to be suppressed under the photon generation rate. Except Auger 7 generation-recombination process, p-type HgCdTe is mostly limited by technology dependent Shockley-Read-Hall generation-recombination mechanism. One of the ways to reduce the trap density is a growth of the (100) HgCdTe on GaAs substrates. That orientation allows reaching lower carrier concentration ~5 × 1014 cm−3 in comparison to the commonly used (111) orientation ~5 × 1015 cm−3 in mid-wavelength infrared range. In addition, it was presented that Shockley-Read-Hall traps density could be reduced to the level of ~4.4 × 108 cm−3. The theoretical simulations related to the utmost performance of the (100) HgCdTe Auger suppressed structures are presented. Dark current is reported to be reduced by more than one order of magnitude within the range ~6 × 10−2–3 × 10−3 A/cm2. Detectivity increases within range ~3–12 × 1011 cm Hz1/2/W (wavelength ~5 μm) at temperature 200 K and voltage 200 mV.