A comparison of indium arsenide antimonide and mercury cadmium telluride as long wavelength infrared detector materials

The basic material parameters that govern the performance of bulk alloys for long wavelength infrared detection have been calculated for indium arsenide antimonide and mercury cadmium telluride. The numbers show that similar performance could be expected from the two materials provided they can be synthesized at similar degrees of perfection. In order to approach parity, the quality of InAsSb must be optimized, which requires careful variations of molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) growth parameters, namely, substrate temperature and flux magnitudes and ratios. Molecular dynamics-based simulations of MBE growth offer a means to optimize these parameters by providing constants for first-principles or empirical growth models or by directly relating the qualities of the simulation-grown crystals to the MBE parameters.