The study of HgCdTe MBE-grown structure with ion milling

Of many techniques used to characterize quality of HgCdTe, ion milling is emerging as a unique means to reveal electrically active and neutral defects and complexes. Ion milling is capable of strongly affecting electrical properties of HgCdTe, up to conductivity type conversion in p-type material. It appears, that strongly non-equilibrium processes which take place under ion milling, when material is oversaturated with mercury interstitial atoms generated near a surface, lead to formation of specific defect complexes, which may not form under other type of treatment. By measuring parameters of a crystal before and after milling, and following disintegration of defects with time after ion milling (’relaxation’), one can detect and identify these defects. This method was applied to analyse different samples grown by molecular beam epitaxy.