Progress in the Molecular Beam Epitaxy of HgCdTe on Large-Area Si and CdZnTe Substrates

• Published in: Journal of electronic materials Vol. 38; no. 8; pp. 1764 - 1770
• Main Authors: Reddy, M., Peterson, J. M., Johnson, S. M., Vang, T., Franklin, J. A., Patten, E. A., Radford, W. A., Bangs, J. W., Lofgreen, D. D.
• Format: Journal Article Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Boston Springer US 01-08-2009; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Cadmium zinc telluride; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemistry and Materials Science; Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science; rheology; Electronics; Electronics and Microelectronics; Exact sciences and technology; Instrumentation; Materials Science; Mercury cadmium telluride; Methods of crystal growth; physics of crystal growth; Methods of deposition of films and coatings; film growth and epitaxy; Molecular beam epitaxy; Molecular, atomic, ion, and chemical beam epitaxy; Optical and Electronic Materials; Optoelectronic devices; Physics; Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices; Semiconductors; Solid State Physics; Substrates; Theory and models of crystal growth; physics of crystal growth, crystal morphology and orientation; HgCdTe on large-area substrates; CdZnTe; cutoff wavelength; Molecular beam epitaxy (MBE); HgCdTe on Si; HgCdTe; HgCdTe void defects; Zinc tellurides; Ruthenium nitride; Voids; Wafers; Cadmium tellurides; Scaling laws; Molecular beam epitaxy; Mercury tellurides; Silicon; Double layers; Defect density; Crystal defects; Color; Photodetectors; Double heterojunction; II-VI semiconductors; Growth mechanism; Heterostructures
• ISSN: 0361-5235; 1543-186X
• DOI: 10.1007/s11664-009-0814-3

This paper presents the progress in the molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) growth of HgCdTe on large-area Si and CdZnTe substrates at Raytheon Vision Systems. We report a very high-quality HgCdTe growth, for the first time, on an 8 cm × 8 cm CdZnTe substrate. This paper also describes the excellent HgCdTe growth repeatability on multiple 7 cm × 7 cm CdZnTe substrates. In order to study the percentage wafer area yield and its consistency from run to run, small lots of dual-band long-wave infrared/long-wave infrared triple-layer heterojunction (TLHJ) layers on 5 cm × 5 cm CdZnTe substrates and single-color double-layer heterojunction (DLHJ) layers on 6-inch Si substrates were grown and tested for cutoff wavelength uniformity and micro- and macrovoid defect density and uniformity. The results show that the entire lot of 12 DLHJ-HgCdTe layers on 6-inch Si wafers meet the testing criterion of cutoff wavelength within the range 4.76 ± 0.1 
μ
m at 130 K and micro- and macrovoid defect density of ≤50 cm
−2
and 5 cm
−2
, respectively. Likewise, five out of six dual-band TLHJ-HgCdTe layers on 5 cm × 5 cm CdZnTe substrates meet the testing criterion of cutoff wavelength within the range 6.3 ± 0.1 
μ
m at 300 K and micro- and macrovoid defect density of ≤2000 cm
−2
and 500 cm
−2
, respectively, on the entire wafer area. Overall we have found that scaling our HgCdTe MBE process to a 10-inch MBE system has provided significant benefits in terms of both wafer uniformity and quality.