Photoluminescence in Mercury Cadmium Telluride – a Historical Perspective. Part I: 1966-1996

Abstract

This work presents a historical perspective on the studies of photoluminescence in mercury cadmium telluride (HgCdTe), one of the most important materials of infrared photoelectronics. The first part of the review considers the results of the studies performed during the early years of the development of the technology of this material (1966-1996). These studies were carried out mostly using samples of bulk crystals and epitaxial films grown by liquid-phase epitaxy. The results of the studies allowed for identification of the nature of optical transitions in HgCdTe, including excitonic emission, interband recombination, donor-acceptor pair recombination and recombination via shallow and deep levels, which greatly helped in maturing the material technology.

Photoluminescence in Mercury Cadmium Telluride – a Historical Retrospective. Part II: 2004–2022

“…[44][45][46][47] were obtained much earlier (before 1995) and cannot be fully trusted, similar to the case of the values of the bandgap of MCT, as discussed in Ref. [3]. Considering the dependence of the VBO on the temperature and MCT composition established by Becker et al [49], for the heterostructures studied by Zhu et al at 5 K one could obtain values of the offset as 0.43 eV (x = 0.314) and 0.39 eV (x = 0.244).…”

“…As can be seen, as in the most cases of E PL(T) dependences discussed above and in Ref. [3], the slope of EPL(T) differs from that of Eg(T) (taken from Ref. [51] as an example and not used in Ref.…”

“…This work is a second part of the general review, where the first part was related to some of the general properties of MCT and to the results of PL studies performed in 1966-1996 [3]. As mentioned in Ref.…”

“…As mentioned in Ref. [3], with MCT being strongly demanded in defense applications, its science and technology experienced a boom during the cold war era, and by the mid-1990s the interest in this material was not so strong. At that point, it was also believed that MCT-based photodetectors would be soon replaced by detectors based on III-V materials.…”

“…PL studies of MCT at Ioffe Institute, which started back in 1978 [3], came to a stop in 1991 and were resumed only in 2007 [69]. The subject of the investigation was now heteroepitaxial films grown on (013)GaAs or (013)Si substrates using the same MBE technology as in Refs.…”