The relaxation of electrical properties of As-and Sb-doped HgCdTe epitaxial layers, which were converted into n-type by ion milling, is studied. It is shown that donor complexes formed under ion milling and responsible for p-to-n conductivity type conversion are not stable, and their concentration decreases upon storage even at room temperature. Increasing the temperature of the storage speeds up the relaxation process. It is demonstrated that the relaxation is caused by the disintegration of the donor complexes that starts right after the end of the milling process because of the decrease in the concentration of interstitial mercury atoms, which were generated during the milling. The results presented in the paper are important for the development of the technology of photodetectors based on HgCdTe doped with V-group acceptors.
This study focuses on developing an understanding of the mechanisms of ion beam milling induced p‐to‐n conversion in extrinsically (As or Sb) doped p‐Hg1—xCdxTe with x ≈ 0.2. The basis of modeling is the quasichemical approach and the model of superfast Hg interstitial atoms diffusion that has permitted to explain the similar conversion occurred in Hg vacancy‐doped p‐type Hg1—xCdxTe. In an acceptor doped material a donor is generated due to the formation of a complex (of interstitial Hg atom and an As or Sb atom located in the Te site). This model provides reasonably good fits with the experimental results obtained for As and Sb doped Hg1—xCdxTe epitaxial layers where the electron concentration in the converted n‐layer corresponds to the concentration of the p‐type dopants. Different efficiency of the conductivity conversion observed for As and Sb doped samples may be explained by different enthalpy of complex formation calculated for AsTe–HgI and SbTe–HgI pairs.
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