Contribution of dislocations to 1/f noise in mercury cadmium telluride infrared photovoltaic detectors

Contribution of dislocations to 1/f noise has been investigated by analysing the temperature dependence of the noise, dark current and zero-bias resistance–area product of mercury cadmium telluride (HgCdTe) diodes. It is shown that irrespective of the type of diode, i.e. n-on-p or p-on-n, dislocation contribution to 1/f noise can be described by in = 1 × 10−2Ish and in = 6 × 10−4Ish for planar and mesa configurations respectively, where, Ish is the current conducted through the dislocations in the base of the diode. A physical model, consistent with the shunt resistance behaviour of dislocations, has been proposed to understand the role of dislocations in enhancing 1/f noise of these diodes.