Aqueous electrochemical growth of anodic sulfide films on mercury cadmium telluride

We present here the first demonstration that oxide-free anodic sulfide layers can be grown on HgCdTe from aqueous electrolytic solutions. Previous work has shown that anodic sulfide films grown from nonaqueous solutions have great potential as passivating layers for HgCdTe. In this work Auger electron spectroscopy depth profiles are used to show that little or no oxide is left at the HgCdTe/CdS interface even when an aqueous growth electrolyte is utilized. Capacitance-voltage data on metal-insulator-semiconductor structures show that the temperature stability of the aqueous sulfide films may be superior to those grown from nonaqueous electrolytes.