Material quality characterization of CdZnTe substrates for HgCdTe epitaxy

Cd1-xZnxTe (CZT) substrates were studied to investigate their bulk and surface properties. Imperfections in CZT substrates affect the quality of Hg1-xCdxTe (MCT) epilayers deposited on them and play a role in limiting the performance of infrared (IR) focal plane arrays. CZT wafers were studied to investigate their bulk and surface properties. Transmission and surface x-ray diffraction techniques, utilizing both a conventional closed-tube x-ray source as well as a synchrotron radiation source, and IR transmission microspectroscopy, were used for bulk and surface investigation. Synchrotron radiation offers the capability to combine good spatial resolution and shorter exposure times than conventional x-ray sources, which allows for high-resolution mapping of relatively large areas in an acceptable amount of time. Information on the location of grain boundaries and precipitates was also obtained. The ultimate goal of this work is to understand the defects in CZT substrates and their effects on the performance and uniformity of MCT epilayers and then to apply this understanding to produce better infrared detectors

de Branges-Rovnyak spaces: basics and theory

For $S$ a contractive analytic operator-valued function on the unit disk ${\mathbb D}$, de Branges and Rovnyak associate a Hilbert space of analytic functions ${\mathcal H}(S)$ and related extension space ${\mathcal D(S)}$ consisting of pairs of analytic functions on the unit disk ${\mathbb D}$. This survey describes three equivalent formulations (the original geometric de Branges-Rovnyak definition, the Toeplitz operator characterization, and the characterization as a reproducing kernel Hilbert space) of the de Branges-Rovnyak space ${\mathcal H}(S)$, as well as its role as the underlying Hilbert space for the modeling of completely non-isometric Hilbert-space contraction operators. Also examined is the extension of these ideas to handle the modeling of the more general class of completely nonunitary contraction operators, where the more general two-component de Branges-Rovnyak model space ${\mathcal D}(S)$ and associated overlapping spaces play key roles. Connections with other function theory problems and applications are also discussed. More recent applications to a variety of subsequent applications are given in a companion survey article

Operator theory and function theory in Drury-Arveson space and its quotients

The Drury-Arveson space $H^2_d$, also known as symmetric Fock space or the $d$-shift space, is a Hilbert function space that has a natural $d$-tuple of operators acting on it, which gives it the structure of a Hilbert module. This survey aims to introduce the Drury-Arveson space, to give a panoramic view of the main operator theoretic and function theoretic aspects of this space, and to describe the universal role that it plays in multivariable operator theory and in Pick interpolation theory.Comment: Final version (to appear in Handbook of Operator Theory); 42 page

High-purity CdMnTe radiation detectors: a high-resolution spectroscopic evaluation

The charge transport properties of a high-purity CdMnTe (CMT) crystal have been measured at room temperature down to a micron-scale resolution. The CMT crystal, doped with indium, was grown by the vertical Bridgman technique. To reduce the residual impurities in the Mn source material, the growth process incorporated a five-times purification process of MnTe by a zone-refining method with molten Te solvent. The resulting 2.6 mm thick crystal exhibited an electron mobility-lifetime product of μnτn=2.9 × 10-3 cm2V-1. The velocity of electron drift was calculated from the rise time distribution of the preamplifier's output pulses at each measured bias. The electron mobility was extracted from the electric field dependence of the drift velocity and at room temperature it has a value of μn=(950±90) cm2/Vs. High-resolution maps of the charge collection efficiency have been measured using a scanning microbeam of 5.5 MeV 4He2+ ions focused to a beam diameter <; 1 μm and display large-area spatial uniformity. The evolution of charge collection uniformity across the detector has been highlighted by acquiring measurements at applied biases ranging between 50 V and 1100 V. Charge transport inhomogeneity has been associated with the presence of bulk defects. It has been demonstrated that minimizing the content of impurities in the MnTe source material is highly effective in achieving major improvements in the CMT detector's performance as compared to previous data. © 2013, IEEE