Experimental studies on electronic properties of HgTe/CdTe and Hg(1-x)Cd(x)Te/CdTe heterostructures and superlattices. Final report, 1 March 1984-30 September 1987

Technical Report · Thu Dec 10 00:00:00 EST 1987

OSTI ID:5220073

Ong, N P

The electronic properties of superlattices made of alternating layers of mercury telluride and cadmium telluride were studied at low temperatures T (down to 0.5 K) and in high dc magnetic fields (up to 29 T.) There were two motivations for performing these studies. 1) Whereas superlattices made from III-V materials such as Aluminum Gallium Arsenides and Indium Phosphide have been fabricated and shown to support very high mobility electrons in two-dimensional wells, similar studies had not been performed on the II-VI compounds. In 1982, Dr. Jeff Cheung at Rockwell, Thousand Oaks, succeeded in fabricating superlattices of HgTe and CdTE using a novel laser-flash-evaporation technique. Initial studies by the group (then at University of Southern California) showed that prospects looked good for realizing excellent two-dimensional electronic devices despite the poor mobility of the early samples. 2) On the practical side, far-infrared (FIR) detectors made from the bulk alloy Hg(1-X)Cd(X)Te suffer from inhomogeneity problems which lead to spatial variations of the gap, especially in the 10 micrometer range. Following suggestions by McGill and Schulman (that the gap superlattice HgTe-CdTe can be tuned by changing the periodicity) the author also explored the FIR capabilities in the Rockwell samples. He made very extensive studies of the weak localisation effects that could be observed in the weak-field magnetoresistance in fields under 40 gauss. By fitting the data to the theory of Hikami et al we extracted quite convincing numbers for the spin-orbit scattering rate and the inelastic-scattering rate.

• Research Organization: Princeton Univ., NJ (USA). Dept. of Physics
• OSTI ID: 5220073
• Report Number(s): AD-A-189826/1/XAB
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
CADMIUM TELLURIDES
SUPERLATTICES
MERCURY TELLURIDES
DIRECT CURRENT
EVAPORATION
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FAR INFRARED RADIATION
HETEROJUNCTIONS
INDIUM PHOSPHIDES
INELASTIC SCATTERING
LASERS
LAYERS
LOW TEMPERATURE
MAGNETIC FIELDS
MAGNETORESISTANCE
PROGRESS REPORT
CADMIUM COMPOUNDS
CHALCOGENIDES
CURRENTS
DATA
DOCUMENT TYPES
ELECTRIC CONDUCTIVITY
ELECTRIC CURRENTS
ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
INDIUM COMPOUNDS
INFORMATION
INFRARED RADIATION
JUNCTIONS
MERCURY COMPOUNDS
NUMERICAL DATA
PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS
PHOSPHIDES
PHOSPHORUS COMPOUNDS
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
PNICTIDES
RADIATIONS
SCATTERING
SEMICONDUCTOR JUNCTIONS
TELLURIDES
TELLURIUM COMPOUNDS
360603* - Materials- Properties