Modeling Mercury Cadmium Telluride (HgCdTe) Photodiodes

Mercury cadmium telluride HgCdTe infrared detectors have been intensively developed over the past 40 years since the first synthesis of this compound semiconductor in 1958. Today, HgCdTe is the most widely used infrared detector material. In this work, we present Silvaco simulations of HgCdTe photodetectors that take into account the temperature dependence of all important material parameters, including bandgap, effective masses, dielectric constant, minority carrier lifetimes, Auger coefficients, etc. As such, this represents the most extensive calculation using Silvaco ATLAS for modeling HgCdTe photodetectors. Optimum detector responsivity and detectivity is obtained by investigating a matrix of photodetectors with different composition, doping, and junction depth.