Abstract: This paper reports the dark conductivity and photoconductivity of amorphous Hg_0.78Cd_0.22Te thin films deposited on an Al₂O₃ substrate by RF magnetron sputtering. It is determined that dark conduction activation energy is 0.417 eV for the as-grown sample. Thermal quenching is absent for the as-grown sample during the testing temperature zone, but the reverse is true for the polycrystalline sample. Photosensitivity shows the maximum at 240 K for amorphous thin films, while it is higher for the as-grown sample than for polycrystalline thin films in the range from 170 to 300 K. The recombination mechanism is the monomolecular recombination process at room temperature, which is different from the low temperature range. The μτ-product is low in the range of 10^-11–10^-9 cm²/V, which indicates that some defect states exist in the amorphous thin films.

Key words: amorphous MCT, dark conductivity, photoconductivity