Thermal cycling-induced changes in excess dark current in very long-wavelength HgCdTe photodiodes at low temperature

We have observed cooldown-to-cooldown changes in the reverse-bias dark current of some very long-wavelength (cutoff >14 μm) HgCdTe P-on-n heterojunction photodiodes operated at very low temperatures (40–45 K). Other photodiodes in the same arrays are stable between cooldowns. The unstable ones have high dark currents, in the tail of the dark current distribution. Current-voltage analysis indicates that the high dark current is caused by trap-assisted tunneling and that the number of traps changes from cooldown to cooldown. Devices with negligible trap-assisted tunneling current, limited by diffusion and band-to-band tunneling currents at reverse bias, are stable between cooldowns. Both types of devices are stable within a given cooldown over periods of at least 24 h.