Transmission electron microscopy of the induced damage by argon implantation in (111) HgCdTe at room temperature

HgCdTe (MCT) is an important semiconductor material used for infrared photovoltaic detectors. Although ion implantation is a widely used technique in the manufacture of devices based on MCT to obtain n/p junctions, a detailed understanding of the n-type behavior of the unannealed damage region has not yet been established. In this work, n/p junctions were formed by Ar++ implantation on MCT (111) grown by the isothermal vapor phase epitaxy method. Structural damage after implantation for different implantation doses (10(13), 10(14), and 10(15) Ar++/cm(2)) was evaluated by transmission electron microscopy. At high doses, damage distribution exhibits a double region of defects. These were mainly vacancy dislocation loops and lines in the first region, whereas the second zone exhibited small dislocation loops. The observed n-type behavior after implantation was attributed to the generation and diffusion of Hg from the damaged region. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.