Mulpuri, Rao V.Simingalam, Sina2016-04-192016-04-192015https://hdl.handle.net/1920/10168Infrared sensors have long been utilized for personal, commercial, and government applications. Mercury cadmium telluride (MCT) is the highest quality material for infrared detection. Its limitation comes in the substrate that it is grown on. Cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) is the substrate of choice for its ability to be lattice matched to the MCT epilayer grown on it, but its limited size of less than 7x7 cm2 and high cost of $200 cm-2 has led to a push for alternative substrates. Silicon has been utilized as a potential alternative substrate due to its cost of less than $1 cm-2 and size of greater than 8” in diameter. However, it has a lattice mismatch of 19% with MCT, leading to an as-grown dislocation density of 1x107 cm-2 in the MCT epilayer. This is more than two orders of magnitude greater than the dislocation density of 1x105 cm-2 for MCT grown on CZT. The work presented in this dissertation looks at various ways of reducing the dislocation density and its impact on devices.121 pagesenCopyright 2015 Sina SimingalamMaterials SciencePhysicsAnnealingDiodeDislocation ReductionMesaPhotovoltaicDissertation