ABSTRACT
This Letter reports the optical properties of CdTe/MgCdTe double heterostructures grown by molecular beam epitaxy. Low-temperature photoluminescence shows strong band-to-band emission and very weak defect related peaks, indicating low defect densities. The measured Shockley–Read–Hall lifetimes range from 57 to 86 ns at room temperature for samples grown under different conditions. The material radiative recombination coefficient B in the recombination rate defined as [Wang et al., Phys. Status Solidi B 244, 2740 (2007)] is evaluated to be 4.3 ± 0.5 × 10−9 cm3·s−1 with a photon recycling factor γ of 0.85 calculated based on the geometric structure of the samples.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors gratefully thank A. P. Kirk for helpful discussions on this Letter. This work was partially supported by AFOSR (Grant No. FA9550-12-1-0444), Science Foundation Arizona (Grant No. SRG 0339-08), and NSF (Grant No. 1002114). This material is also based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (Grant No. DGE-0802261).

