Study of a potential anisotropic dopant diffusion induced by annealing in HgCdTe

The ternary CdHgTe is the reference material for high-end applications like the next generation of state-of-the-art high-performance cooled infrared detectors for astrophysical applications. Current development focuses on mastering extrinsic p-type doping. Antimony is a good candidate to obtain the desired p-type behaviour, with ionic implantation used to ensure the precise and localized incorporation of the doping element. A previous study of the evolution of implantation-induced damages after annealing treatment revealed an anisotropic diffraction intensity loss in the depth of the material with a range matching typical diffusion length. The goal of this proposal is to understand all underlying physical mechanisms and driving forces that lead to this unexpected anisotropic phenomenon. And to assess its eventual correlation to an anisotropic dopant diffusion, a phenomenon that could lead to massive applicative interests.