Characterization of liquid-phase epitaxially grown HgCdTe films by magnetoresistance measurements
In this paper, we demonstrate that measurements of the magnetoresistance can be used as a valuable alternative to conventional characterization tools to study transport properties of advanced semiconducting materials, structures, or devices. We have measured magnetoresistance on two different systems, namely, three liquid-phase epitaxially grown HgCdTe films and two GaAs-based high-electron-mobility-transistor (HEMT) structures. The results are analyzed by using a two-carrier model as a reference in the context of the reduced-conductivity-tensor scheme. The HEMT data are in quantitative agreement with the two-carrier model, but the HgCdTe data exhibit appreciable deviations from the model. The observed deviations strongly indicate a mobility spread and material complexity in the HgCdTe samples which are probably associated with inhomogeneities and the resulting anomalous electrical behavior.