Effects of carrier degeneracy and conduction band nonparabolicity on the simulation of HgCdTe photovoltaic devices

By using the analytic model of the MCT device simulation, R/sub d/-V curve comparisons are made with the carrier density approximations by considering (1) both carrier degeneracy and conduction band nonparabolicity, (2) only carrier degeneracy, and (3) only conduction band nonparabolicity. The effects of the omission of carrier degeneracy and conduction band nonparabolicity on each of the four types of dark current mechanisms are evaluated, which is found to lead to an enormous deviation in the simulation of MCT devices, especially for LWIR devices with heavy doping.