Ten-Inch Molecular Beam Epitaxy Production System for HgCdTe Growth

摘要

Growth of Hg_(1-x)Cd_(x)Te by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) has been under development since the early 1980s at Rockwell Scientific Company (RSC), formerly the Rockwell Science Center; and we have shown that high-performance and highly reproducible MBE HgCdTe double heterostructure planar p-on-n devices can be produced with high throughput for various single- and multiplecolor infrared applications. In this paper, we present data on Hg_(1-x)Cd_(x)Te epitaxial layers grown in a ten-inch production MBE system. For growth of HgCdTe, standard effusion cells containing CdTe and Te were used, in addition to a Hg source. The system is equipped with reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED) and spectral ellipsometry in addition to other fully automated electrical and optical monitoring systems. The HgCdTe heterostructures grown in our large ten-inch Riber 49 MBE system have outstanding structural characteristics with etch-pit densities (EPDs) in the low 10~(4) cm~(-2) range, Hall carrier concentration in low 10~(14) cm~(-3), and void density <1000 cm~(2). The epilayers were grown on near lattice-matched (211)B Cd_(0.96)Zn_(0.04)Te substrates. High-performance mid wavelength infrared (MWIR) devices were fabricated with R_(0)A values of 7.2 X 10~(6) OMEGA-cm~(2) at 110 K, and the quantum efficiency without an antireflection coating was 71.5percent for cutoff wavelength of 5.21 (mu)m at 37 K. For short wavelength infrared (SWIR) devices, an R_(0)A value of 9.4 X 10~(5) OMEGA-cm~(2) at 200 K was obtained and quantum efficiency without an antireflection coating was 64percent for cutoff wavelength of 2.61 (mu)m at 37 K. These R_(0)A values are comparable to our trend line values in this temperature range.