Recent progress in the fabrication of photovoltaic Hg1-xCdxTe detectors

The Hg1-xCdxTe ternary compound is a material in which the forbidden bandgap can be varied. It lends itself ideally to the fabrication of photovoltaic infrared detectors in the 2 to 12µm spectral region. Special effort was directed toward the development of a component with superior performance and reliability. The crystal growing process is controlled to yield large diameter, homogeneous crystals. Mass production techniques commonly used in the semi-conductor industry are implemented for the processing of the photodiodes. More advanced techniques, such as ion implantation are being considered. Single-element detectors and multi-element arrays with high performance characteristics in D*, quantum efficiency and cut-off frequency have been fabricated.