Crystallographic polarity and etching of cadmium telluride

This paper resolves the inconsistency in the literature on the determination of the polarity of CdTe and CdxHg1−xTe from their etching behavior. The etch (H2O:H2O2:HF, 2:2:3 v/v) has been shown to reveal pits on the Cd (111) A face and not on the Te (1̄1̄1̄) B face in contradiction to the previously published work of Warekois, Lavine, Mariano, and Gatos [J. Appl. Phys. 33, 690 (1962)] and Nakagawa, Maeda, and Takeuchi [Appl. Phys. Lett. 34, 574 (1979)]. This result agrees with the observations of Fewster, Cole, Willoughby, and Brown [J. Appl. Phys. 52, 4568 (1981)] for CdxHg1−xTe grown epitaxially on CdTe.