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Wet Chemical Methods of HgCdTe Surface Treatment

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Abstract

Chemical pretreatment and surface cleaning is a key procedure of semiconductor technologies. Development of methods for the preparation of mercury cadmium telluride (HgCdTe) surfaces is of interest because this material has a wide range of known and potential applications in photoelectronics. This work reports an XPS and AFM study of the effect of various chemical treatments on the chemical composition and micro-morphology of the HgCdTe surface. Among all considered etchants, only ammonium hydroxide effectively removes the native oxide of HgCdTe without leaving a surface layer of metallic tellurium, while preserving nearly stoichiometric chemical composition of the surface. The optimal time of aqueous ammonia treatment is determined.

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Funding

This study was funded by the Russian Science Foundation (project No. 21-72-10134).

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Correspondence to E. R. Zakirov.

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Russian Text © The Author(s), 2023, published in Zhurnal Strukturnoi Khimii, 2023, Vol. 64, No. 3, 108216.https://doi.org/10.26902/JSC_id108216

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Zakirov, E.R., Kesler, V.G., Sidorov, G.Y. et al. Wet Chemical Methods of HgCdTe Surface Treatment. J Struct Chem 64, 519–527 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0022476623030150

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