30 Years of HgCdTe Technology in Israel

摘要

The study of HgCdTe technology in Israel began in the mid 1970's under the leadership of the late Prof. Kidron and his group at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology. The R&D efforts were continued by other groups at the Technion and other universities and research institutes in Israel, as well as by SCD. Many aspects of the technology of this material were studied, including both bulk crystal and epitaxial growths and microelectronic fabrication methods, with an emphasis on surface treatment and passivation. Various characterization methods were developed to study both the basic and applied material and device properties. The efforts, reviewed in this article, matured at SCD as it commercialized the HgCdTe technology, launching large-volume production lines of state-of-the-art linear and multi-linear TDI LWIR detector arrays of various sizes from 10×1 to 480×6 elements. Over the years, SCD has supplied its customers with thousands of both photoconductive (PC) and photovoltaic (PV) detectors, which are briefly presented in the paper.