Mercury containment for liquid phase growth of mercury cadmium telluride from tellurium-rich solution

摘要

Hg1-xCdxTe is an important semiconductor for use in photovoltaic and photoconductive infrared photon detectors. Hg1-xCdxTe can be grown by liquid phase epitaxy at atmospheric pressure from a Te-rich solution in which case the Hg vapor pressure is below 0.1 atm at 500 DEG C. This low vapor pressure makes possible the use of open-tube, slider growth techniques. The present invention describes a covered graphite slider system which provides an additional source of Hg, minimizes loss of Hg from the source wafer and virtually prevents loss of Hg from the (Hg1-xCdx)1-yTey growth solution.