Contactless measurement of the conductivity of II–VI epitaxial layers by means of the partially filled waveguide method

Abstract

We report the contactless determination of the conductivity, the mobility and the carrier concentration of II–VI semiconductors by means of the technique of the partially filled waveguide at a microwave frequency of 9 GHz. The samples are CdHgTe epitaxial layers, grown on CdZnTe substrates by molecular beam epitaxy. The conductivity is determined from the transmission coefficient of the sample in the partially filled waveguide. For the analysis of the experimental data, the complex transmission coefficient is calculated by a rigorous multi-mode matching procedure. By varying the conductivity of the sample, we obtain an optimum fit of the calculated data to the experimental results. Comparison with conductivity data determined by the van der Pauw method shows that our method allows to measure the conductivity with good accuracy. The behaviour of the transmission coefficient of the sample is discussed in dependence on the layer conductivity, the layer thickness and the dielectric constant of the substrate. The calculations require to consider in detail the distribution of the electromagnetic fields in the sample region. The usual assumption of a hardly disturbed TE₁₀ mode cannot be used in our case. By applying a magnetic field in extraordinary Voigt configuration, galvanomagnetic measurements have been carried out which yield the mobility and thus the carrier concentration. These results are also in good agreement with van der Pauw transport measurements.