Determination of charge-carrier diffusion length in the photosensing layer of HgCdTe n-on-p photovoltaic infrared focal plane array detectors

In the present paper, we propose a method for evaluating the bulk diffusion length of minority charge carriers in the photosensing layer of photovoltaic focal plane array (FPA) photodetectors. The method is based on scanning a strip-shaped illumination spot with one of the detector diodes at a low level of photocurrents jph being registered; such scanning provides data for subsequent analysis of measured spot-scan profiles within a simple diffusion model. The asymptotic behavior of the effective (at jph ≠ 0) charge-carrier diffusion length ld eff as a function of jph for jph → 0 inferred from our experimental data proved to be consistent with the behavior of ld eff vs jph as predicted by the model, while the obtained values of the bulk diffusion length of minority carriers (electrons) in the p-HgCdTe film of investigated HgCdTe n-on-p FPA photodetectors were found to be in a good agreement with the previously reported carrier diffusion-length values for HgCdTe.