Responsivity and lifetime of resonant cavity enhanced HgCdTe detectors

Resonant cavity enhanced HgCdTe structures have been grown by molecular beam epitaxy, and photoconductors have been modelled and fabricated based on these structures. Responsivity has been measured and shows a peak responsivity of 8 times 10⁴ V/W for a 50 times 50 mum² photoconductor at a temperature of 200K. The measured responsivity shows good agreement with the modelled responsivity across the mid-wave infrared window (3-5 mum). The measured responsivity is limited by surface recombination, which limits the effective lifetime to ap 15ns. The optical cut-off of the detector varies with temperature as modelled. There is strong agreement between modelled peak responsivity and measured peak responsivity with varying temperature from 80-300K