Methods for determining minority carrier lifetime in HgCdTe photovoltaic detectors

Using three methods, i.e., modified photo-induced open-circuit voltage decay method (OCVD), small parallel resistance method and pulse recovery method, the minority carrier lifetime in the base region of Hg_1-xCd_xTe pn junction devices has been measured at liquid nitrogen temperature. The lifetime is in the range of 18 ap 407 ns for x = 0.231 ap 0.4186, 1 ap 100 ns for x = 0.2234 ap 0.305, and 4 ap 20 ns for x = 0.231 ap 0.4186 for the modified photo-induced OCVD method, the small parallel resistance method and the pulse recovery method, respectively. The results indicate that the lifetime become longer with the increase of Cd composition.