REDUCED METAL-INSULATOR SEMICONDUCTOR TUNNELING IN METALORGANIC CHEMICAL VAPOR-DEPOSITION HGCDTE(111)TE FILMS

Metal-insulator semiconductor tunnel currents in metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) HgCdTe(111)Te layers are measured to be comparable to those found in high quality liquid phase epitaxy HgCdTe(111)Te. These tunnel currents are found to increase if CdTe rather than lattice-matched CdZnTe substrates are chosen or if the (001) growth orientation is selected. The rotational twins that generally form with (111) oriented HgCdTe growth by MOCVD are not detectable in more than 60% of the films characterized in this work. These results mark an important step towards the use of MOCVD HgCdTe heterostructure or heterojunction films for high performance infrared focal plane arrays.