Metalorganic vapor phase epitaxial growth of hillock free (100) HgCdTe/GaAs with good electrical properties

Abstract

The hillock density on metalorganic vapor phase epitaxially grown (100) HgCdTe/GaAs could be reduced to less than 10 cm(-2) by rinsing the substrate with KOH in a water solution before growth. The HgCdTe layers which were annealed in Hg at 250 degrees C were n-type with carrier concentrations between mid-10(14) and mid-10(15) cm(-3). SIMS analysis also showed that the remaining potassium was not at a concentration high enough to influence the electrical properties of HgCdTe. This result shows that MOVPE process could be used to fabricate large area focal plane arrays which need hillock free surface morphology together with good electrical properties.