Thermal annealing of CdTe-rich HgCdTe: structural and optical studies

The article presents the results of studying the structural and optical properties of Hg$_{1-x}$Cd$_x$Te films with a high ($x$ = 0.5–0.7) CdTe content, grown by molecular beam epitaxy and subjected to thermal annealing at temperatures from 330 to 440$^\circ$С. The effect of annealing on the crystal structure and point defects is determined based on optical transmission, photoluminescence, X-ray diffraction, and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy studies. It is shown that the defect structure of the material undergoes significant changes after annealing, while its crystalline perfection changes insignificantly.