Study of the effects of radiation on the electrical and optical properties of HgCdTe

This report presents the results of an experimental and theoretical investigation of the effects of radiation on the optical and electrical properties of the alloy semiconductor HgCdTe. The objective is to obtain sufficient radiation effects data to enable reliable prediction of the radiation response of detectors fabricated from HgCdTe. The previous studies used n-type Hg(0.8)Cd(0.2)Te with extrinsic electron densities on the order of 1.5 x 10 to the 15th power/cc. The present studies differ in that lower-carrier-density material (n-5 x 10 to the 14th power/cc), which is more representative of current state-of-the-art detector-grade material, is being studied. An effort is made to describe the experimental procedures and conditions in sufficient detail to allow comparison and correlation of this data with that of other investigations.