Growth and physics of Hg1-xCdxTe and type IIIHgTe/Hg1-xCdxTe heterostructures

Aspects of molecular beam epitaxial, MBE, growth of Hg1-xCdxTe; in particular the dependence on orientation, the presence of nano-scale surface structure, growth mechanisms and n and p type doping are discussed. In addition the MBE growth of HgTe/Hg1-xCdxTe heterostructures is described. Magneto-transport measurements of n type quantum wells, QWs, show very pronounced Shubnikov-de Haas, SdH, oscillations and well developed quantum Hall plateaus for temperatures up to approximately 60 K. A large Rashba spin splitting of the first conduction subband, H1, has been observed in HgTe/Hg1-xCdxTe QWs with an inverted band structure. Self-consistent Hartree calculations of the band structure based on the above model allows us to quantatively describe the experimental results and demonstrates that the heavy hole nature of the HI subband greatly influences the spatial distribution of electrons in the QW and thus enhances the Rashba spin splitting. Furthermore the presence of two periodic SdH oscillations in p type QWs with an inverted band structure has been observed and shown to be the result of their indirect band structure and not due to Rashba spin splitting.