II-VI semiconductor microstructures: from physics to optoelectronics

Abstract

The family of tellurium compounds shows numerous interesting characteristics. The various compounds cover a very large range of bandgap energies from 0 to more than 3 eV. The lattice parameters of the various compounds are sometimes almost perfectly matched, as in the CdTe/CdxHg1-xTe case, or slightly enough mismatched for a coherent epitaxy to be performed. Moreover, good quality Cd0.96Zn0.04Te substrates are now available which allow to grow large variety of microstructures using molecular beam epitaxy. The thickness control of the deposited layers allows to design and grow sophisticated heterostructures incorporating monolayer thick features. The direct band gap of these materials makes them well-suited to many optoelectronic applications in the infrared and visible range.