Dark currents have been measured for p‐type Hg0.757 Cd0.243 Te using a metal–insulator–semiconductor device structure. A capacitance transient technique was used to derive dark current over a temperature range of 30 to 75 K for electric fields up to 0.7 V/μm. Thermal‐limited behavior predicted for the low‐temperature region was not observed, requiring the addition of band‐to‐band tunneling via Shockley–Read–Hall centers to provide qualitative agreement with theoretical calculations. These results point out the importance of material uniformity, especially in the low‐temperature high‐field regime in which tunneling is the main dark current source. The relative importance of dopant compensation, dislocation density, Shockley–Read–Hall states, and band‐gap uniformity will be discussed.
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Blanks et al. (1988) studied this question.