Properties of Ohmic Contact of Au Electrode on Polycrystalline Mercuric Iodide

Polycrystalline mercuric iodide films are being developed as a new detector technology for digital X-ray imaging. The properties of the contact between electrode and film play an important role in the performance of the polycrystalline mercuric iodide detector. In this paper, the films were grown on the thin film transistor (TFT) substrates via hot-wall physical vapor deposition method. Au front contacts were deposited onto the HgI2 films by thermal evaporation under a vacuum of 10-4Pa. The HgI2 films were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The surface morphology of the films before and after the process of evaporating Au was compared by scan electron microscopes (SEM). And the I-V curve was measured after evaporating Au electrode. The results indicate that the polycrystalline mercuric iodide films we prepared have a very strong (001) growth-preference. Au was deposited on the grain surface forming excellent ohmic contact with polycrystalline α-HgI2 film which was also confirmed by the I-V characteristic of HgI2 film after the process of evaporating Au electrode.