PHOTOELECTRIC PROPERTIES OF CADMIUM TELLURIDE FILMS SUBJECTED TO LASER-RADIATION

The electrical and photoelectric properties of CdTe films grown by vac uum evaporation and bombarded by ruby laser pulses of 20-ns duration a nd of power density below the damage or melting thresholds have been s tudied. The observed increase in the photoconductivity and dark conduc tivity was attributed to the appearance of a Te layer on the surface o f CdTe after such bombardment. Switching with a memory and an abrupt j ump in the lux-ampere characteristic at high excitation rates were due to formation of grain boundaries which created surface-barrier CdTe-T e structures.