Thermosolutal Transport Effects in the Growth of Hg-Containing Compound Semiconductors

The use of organometallic vapor phase epitaxy (OMVPE) for the growth of Hg containing semiconductors has been hindered by lack of reproducibility and uniformity. This difficulty in preparing high quality films of materials such as Hg sub X Cd sub 1-X Te has led to the development of techniques such as intentional interdiffusion of binary layers in order to obtain usable ternary films. However, this method is not suitable for complex device structures such as superlattices. Therefore, there is a need for understanding the origin of the growth difficulties.