EXPERIMENTAL-EVIDENCE FOR THE TRANSITION OF DIFFERENT INDIRECT TUNNELING PROCESSES IN P-HGCDTE

We present an experimental observation of the transition of different indirect tunnelling processes in p-type HgCdTe. The results demonstrat e that the indirect tunnel currents via Shockley-Read-Hall traps exhib it a transition from thermally assisted tunneling to two-step indirect tunneling over a temperature range of 25-200 K, which enables indepen dent measurements to be made on the two processes. A 55 meV trap level which contributes strongly to the indirect tunneling mechanisms was e stimated by measuring the activation energy. (C) 1998 American Institu te of Physics.