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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 February 2011
The carrier concentration in narrow-gap semiconductors operating at room temperature is usually determined by thermal generation, not by doping. By reverse biasing a specially designed HgCdTe P+ - π - N+ heterostructure, the carrier concentrations in the narrow-gap π layer are held below the intrinsic concentration. Temperature dependent measurements of the reverse-bias current-voltage characteristics reveal that the devices operate as "usual" diodes below approximately 225 K. Above this temperature, the intrinsic carrier concentration increases, and the suppression mechanism appears in the I-V curves as negative differential resistance regions. The low-frequency noise performance of these devices, both in the forward bias and the reverse bias regime, as a function of temperature will be presented.