CdZnTe is the most suitable epitaxial substrate material of HgCdTe infrared detectors, because its lattice constant is able to achieve full match with HgCdTe’s lattice constant. It is always needed to etch CdZnTe substrate during the process of device separation or when we want to fabricate micro optical device on CdZnTe substrate. This paper adopts the more advanced method, Inductive Coupled Plasma-Reactive Ion Etching(ICP-RIE). The etching conditions of ICP-RIE on CdZnTe substrate are explored and researched. First of all, a set of comparative experiments is designed. All of CdZnTe samples with the same component are polished by chemical mechanical polishing before etching. Then all samples are etched by different types of etching gases(CH4/H2/N2/Ar) and different ratios of gases as we designed. The etching time is all set to 30 minutes. After that, the surface roughness, etching rate, etching damage and the profile of etched mesas are tested and characterized by optical microscope, step profiler and confocal laser scanning microscope (CLSM), respectively. It is found that, Ar gas plays the role of physical etching, but the etching rate will decline when the concentration of Ar gas is too high. The results also show that, the introduction of N2 causes more etching damage. Finally, combination of CH4/H2/Ar is used to etch CdZnTe substrate. The ratio of these gases is 2sccm/2sccm/10sccm. The testing results of optimized etching show that, the maximum etching rate reaches up to 20μm/h and the etched CdZnTe surface is smooth with very low etching damage. At last, aimed at the shortcoming of photoresist’s degeneration after long-time etching, the ICP etching process of CdZnTe deep mesa is studied. Double-layer or triple-layer photoresist are spin-coated on CdZnTe substrate during the process of lithography. Then ICP etching is carried out with the optimized condition. It is seen that there is no more phenomena of degeneration.
ZnS thin films were prepared on HgCdTe substrates by thermal evaporation and megnetron sputtering deposition technique. The morphology, structure, composition, and optical properties of two kinds of ZnS thin films were studied by scanning electron microscope(SEM), X-ray diffraction(XRD), energy dispersive X-ray analysis(EDX) and fourier transform infrared(FTIR) spectrometer. Then the HgCdTe MIS devices using ZnS thin film as insulating layer were successfully fabricated. The C-V measurement of MIS devices was used to study electrical characteristics of the ZnS/HgCdTe interface. The experimental results show that, the ZnS thin films by thermal evaporation and megnetron sputtering both have good transmission characteristics in infrared waveband and close atomic ratios of Zn/S. The former one exhibits zincblende structure and a phenomenon of layer growth, but the latter one exhibits wurtzite structure and an obvious phenomenon of island growth. It is also found that, the former one has less fixed charge density than the latter one.
In this paper, we study the magneto-transport properties of ion-etching-induced p-to-n type converted layers in Hg1-
xCdxTe (x=0.24) single crystal with the help of mobility spectrum analysis (MSA) technique. Hall measurement shows
that the residual p-HgCdTe completely converted to n-type after ion etching. By step-by-step chemical etching, MSA
reveals that ion-etching-induced conversion results in a damaged surface layer with low electron mobility while a bulk n-type
region exhibits higher electron mobility. It can be observed that the mobility of the surface electrons is
independence of temperature in the measured temperature range. In contrast, the bulk electrons exhibit classical behavior
of n-HgCdTe with characteristics that are strongly dependence on temperature. The Hall data from different thickness
shows the bulk n-layer is uniform with high mobility and lower concentration.
Cd1-xZnxTe single crystals were grown by Vertical Bridgman method. The optic and dielectric properties of Cd1-xZnxTe (× = 0.04) single crystals in 0.2−2.5 THz frequency range have been investigated by using transmission-type THz timedomain spectroscopy. Two absorption modes at 1.6 THz and at 2.1 THz were observed, which were attributed to the quasi-local mode of ZnTe in CdTe and to the CdTe 2TA phonon process, respectively. The complex refractive index and dielectric function were extracted from the measured transmittance and phase shift in 0.2−2.5 THz range
In this paper, dry etching of In0.8Al0.2As/In0.8Ga0.2As/In1-xAlxAs (In1-x-yAlxGayAs) epitaxy material was studied in
BCl3/Cl2/Ar inductively coupled plasma (ICP). Etching behavior was characterized by varying the BCl3/Cl2/Ar mixing
ratio, ICP power or DC-bias. The results indicate that, in Cl2 dominant condition, smooth surfaces are achieved with
mean etch rate exceeding 2 μm/min. As the ratio of BCl3 increasing, the etch rates decrease monotonously and the
surfaces becomes rougher because of low volatility InClx etch product. ICP power influences the etch rates, and the etch
rates increase monotonously with DC-bias. The result is useful for the fabrication of extended long-wavelength response
optoelectronic InGaAs devices.
In this work, an innovated Si3N4 as an out-diffusion barrier layer to Au/Zn/Au contact system for p-type InP has been
proposed. Before the contacts were annealed, Si3N4 layer was deposited on the Au(200Å)/Zn(700Å)/Au(200Å), then the
Si3N4 was removed by HF and a 2000A layer of pure gold was deposited to facilitate wire bonding. The specific contact
resistance dropped to a minimum value of 6×10-7 Ω • cm2 (for an acceptor concentration of about 3×1018cm-3) and the
contact became perfectly Ohmic. Besides, Si3N4 layer is an excellent passivation layer and antireflection coating in
InP/InGaAs/InP (p-i-n) photodiodes.
The uncooled InGaAs-based infrared detector has received great interest in recent years for its application in optical-fiber
communication and remote sensing. However, the improvement of device performance is hampered by the lack of
feasible method to monitor its device process. The Microwave Photoconductivity Decay (μ-PCD) technique is a
contactless and non-destructive technique of the recombination lifetime characterization and mapping and has found
wide application in semiconductor research. In this paper, a double heterojunction p-i-n InP/In0.53Ga0.47As/InP mesa
structure was fabricated by Ar+ ion etching and the μ-PCD technique was applied to characterize the electrical effects of
ion etching on this structure. The results revealed that the built-in field in the p-n junction played a critical role in
recombination of photo induced minority carriers which made the mesa structure identifiable but not identical with the
lifetime mapping of the sample. The recombination lifetime in the mesa was dominated by the recombination process in
the edge of the mesa. The lifetime in the etched region was also influenced by the built-in field and increased with the
decrease of distance to the mesa area. And ion etching brought great nonuniformity to the photo active cells.
In this paper, 256 elements front-illuminated InGaAs mesa detector arrays were fabricated based on doped-InGaAs
absorbing layer in MOCVD-grown p-InP/n-InGaAs/n-InP
double-heterostructure epitaxial materials. The processing
includes mesa-making, SiNx passivation, growth of electrodes and so on. The current-voltage, capacitance-voltage
characteristics and response spectrum of the detector were measured. The results indicate that the InGaAs detector has
typical dark current about 0.9 nA at 0.5 V reverse-bias voltage, a capacitance as low as 49 pF at 1 reverse-bias voltage,
and the peak wavelength and cutoff wavelength at 1.57μm and 1.68μm respectively. The InGaAs detector arrays were
connected with two CTIA-structured L128 read-out integrated circuits, and the response signal and noise were obtained.
At room temperature, the mean peak detectivity of the InGaAs focal plane arrays (FPAs) is 1.9×1012
cmHz1/2W-1, and the
non-uniformity of response is superior to 6%. The laser beam induced current (LBIC) technique was used to investigate
the crosstalk and photoactive area of the InGaAs detectors. Its results indicate that there is little crosstalk between two
neighbor InGaAs detectors, about 7%. The photoactive area of InGaAs detector extends about 4.5 μm, and the reason is analyed in the paper.
In this work, the performance of InxGa1-xAs photovoltaic detectors with cutoff wavelength of 2.4μm(x=0.78) were
investigated. The detector arrays were fabricated using gas source molecular beam epitaxy (GSMBE) grown material and
arranged in linear arrays of 256 pixels of 56×56μm2 dimension. The transition of the large lattice mismatch (1.6%)
between the substrate and the absorption layer was dealt with a linearity transformation InxGa1-xAs buffer layer. The
dark-current performance achieved is as low as 10-10A at 300K and a bias voltage of -0.5V. This corresponds to a figure
of merit for detector resistance R0 times detector pixel area A of R0A =3.5~7.5Ωcm2 at 300K and quantum efficiency
above 60%. Room temperature D*(λp) values beyond 3×1010cmHz1/2W-1.
We found that the contact resistance of Au/Pt/Ti on p-InP increases with the increase of annealing time and annealing
temperature. Au/Pt/Ti is ohmic contact metal as deposited with specific contact resistance of 2.49×10-3 Ωcm2 when p-InP
doped by 7.5×1018 cm-3 and is Schottky contact when doped by 2×1018 cm-3. Surface morphologies of Au/Pt/Ti after rapid
thermal processing (RTP) were analyzed by atom force microscopy (AFM). An interface layer dominated by TiIn
compound, which increase the specific contact resistance, was found in Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) analysis.
P-InP and n-InP ohmic contacts can be achieved at the same time as deposited when added p-In0.53Ga0.47As layer on
p-InP/InGaAs/n-InP without annealing.
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