Dislocation Filtering Layers for Defect Reduction in the Heteroepitaxial Growth of Infrared Optoelectronic Materials

This chapter focuses on the utilization of strained cadmium zinc telluride (CdZnTe)/cadmium telluride (CdTe) nanostructured buffer layers as dislocation filtering layers for defect engineering in epitaxially grown CdTe buffer layers on lattice-mismatched III–V GaAs substrates. The structural and optical properties of the Cd(Zn)Te buffer layers were investigated using various characterization techniques, including transmission electron microscopy, etch pit density measurements, high-resolution X-ray diffraction, cathodoluminescence, and photoluminescence. The correlation between the structural/growth parameters of the nanosuperlattice layers and the efficiency of dislocation filtering is examined and discussed, which provides alternative guidance for the defect engineering of heteroepitaxial II–VI semiconductors for the development of next-generation infrared imaging arrays.