In this study, we report the RF magnetron sputtering growth and characterization of CdTe passivant on bulk n-type HgCdTe. Our investigations include the HgCdTe surface preparation and in-situ pretreatment, deposition-induced surface damage, interface charge, CdTe film stoichiometry, and thermal stability. The metal-insulator-semiconductor test structures are processed and their electrical properties are measured by capacitance-voltage characteristics. The heterostructures are also characterized by reflectance measurement. In order to investigate the passivation properties of CdTe/HgCdTe heterostructures, we have modeled the band diagram of abrupt CdTe/HgCdTe heterojunction. The effect of sputtering growth condition parameters is also reported. The sputtering CdTe layers, exhibit excellent dielectric, insulating and mechano- chemical properties, as well as interface properties. The interfaces are characterized by slight accumulation and a small hysteresis. A carefully controlled growth process and surface pretreatment tailored to the specific material are required in order to obtain near flat band conditions on n- type materials. Additional informations on surface limitations are obtained from analyzing the I-V characteristics of photodiodes with metal gates covering the p-n junction surface location.
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