Book review: Gap II-VI compounds for optoelectronic and electromagnetic applications. Peter Capper (Editor), Chapman and Hall. 1997, ISBN 0-412-71560-0

Abstract

Narrow Gap II-VI Compounds for Optoelectronic and Electromagnetic Applications, edited by Peter Capper
Chapman and Hall, Electronic Materials Series, Volume 3, 1997, ISBN 0-412-71560-0, 561 Pages. Price £89.00. (Reviewed in Journal of Infrared Physics and Technology 1998 pp.487-488)

Review
This book, comprising twenty chapters by no less than thirty-two authors, is without a doubt one of the most comprehensive and authoritative texts available on the subject. The authors — and an even more extensive list of people acknowledged for acting as referees, are a role call of the best known names in the field. Problems often occur with books assembled in this way including uneven style, multiple coverage of the same material in several chapters, inconsistency of level and the like; whilst not entirely immune from these the editor has certainly done an excellent job of reducing them to an acceptable minimum, no mean feat with so many authors!

Not surprisingly, the book is dominated by mercury cadmium telluride, MCT, with very limited sections on related zinc and selenium compounds, and on the dilute magnetic semiconductors based on HgMnTe,Se,S and HgFeTe,Se. As such of course it is of very direct interest to the readership of Infrared Physics and Technology through the importance of MCT to detectors, and more recently to lasers.

The book is divided into three sections, starting with material growth. Reliable growth of bulk MCT crystals and epitaxial layers is of course the starting point of any useful device, and here the reader will find a comprehensive discussion of bulk crystal growth, and epitaxial growth by LPE, MOVPE and MBE. Here, as in the rest of the book, the referencing is comprehensive and up to date to at least 1995.

MCT and the related compounds are particularly complex, and the next section of the book logically deals with material characterisation. In fact as well as the more obvious sections on optical and transport properties, doping, point defects, diffusion, surface properties, quantum wells and dilute magnetic semiconductors are covered here. In most cases the reader is given a brief insight into the relevant measurement methods, especially where they are specialised for use with these materials, but the focus is on presenting a wide range of data on the materials themselves. The section forms an invaluable reference for the established worker, and an excellent starting point for the newcomer to the field.

Finally, and logically, the book covers applications in seven chapters. Considering their overwhelming importance it is surprising to see less than forty pages devoted to photovoltaic and photoconductive detectors, and perhaps a larger section on materials issues related to large array devices would have been welcome to many readers. The subjects of LEDs, lasers and non-equilibrium devices, now attracting interest not only as infrared detectors but for the strange property of 'negative luminescence' in which thermal emission is reduced are also discussed, as are photo detectors based on other effects such as the Dember effect, PEM and magnetoconcentration detectors. The final two chapters are perhaps the only ones of less interest to the readership of IPT, on solar cells and ionising radiation detectors in CdTe.

The book presents numerous clear figures and illustrations, and large amounts of tabulated data, and overall can be highly recommended to anyone in, or entering this field of work. One query might be whether the reader needs both this volume and the closely related EMIS Volume 10, 'Narrow Gap Cadmium Based Compounds', by the same editor. This latter volume, whilst again heavily biased to MCT, does cover the other related materials more heavily. It is rather different in style, and concentrates strongly on presenting sources of numerical data as befits a volume in the 'Datareviews' series. If you are seriously involved in the field, you will want both, but as a starting point and to aid understanding, the subject of the present review is a better choice.

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