The interfaces of UHV-cleaved Hg0.77Cd0.23Te with Ag and with Al have been studied with x-ray and ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy at coverages from submonolayer to tens of monolayers. These two metals were chosen because they lie at the extremes of chemical reactivity with Te: Al is very reactive, while Ag is nonreactive. As expected, little chemical reaction is seen for the Ag/(Hg,Cd)Te interface. The Ag diffuses 102–103 Å into the bulk, displacing Hg in the process. No such deep diffusion is seen for Al. For the Al/(Hg,Cd)Te interface, the first 3–5 ML are incorporated into an Al–Te reacted layer, with further Al deposition being incorporated as metallic Al. A significant depletion of Hg in the first few semiconductor layers occurs even at submonolayer coverages. Our results are compared with other work on metal/(Hg,Cd)Te and related interfaces.
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Friedman et al. (1986) studied this question.