Some peculiarities of (Hg, Cd) Te liquid-phase epitaxial growth in a semi-closed, two-zone system

A semi-closed, two-zone system for (Hg, Cd)Te liquid-phase epitaxy (LPE) is described which has the main advantage of closed systems: namely, there is no loss of mercury from the solution. The system retains all the good properties of open systems, i.e. it simplifies the repeated use. One other advantage is the possibility of rinsing the system in pure hydrogen. In order to establish the experimental conditions for obtaining the LPE (Hg, Cd)Te layers of desired composition on the CdTe or CdZnTe substrates, it is first necessary to study the problems of maintenance of the already homogenized solution composition, homogenization rate, and the epitaxial layers' composition changes as a function of solution supercooling.