Experimental measurements were made of the cation vacancy formation energy. Samples were annealed in a Hg ambient, quenched to room temperature and subjected to Hall-effect measurements at 77K. The data showed that a single charge state vacancy was dominant, such that the fractional number, n, was exponentially related to the energy required to create one vacancy:

n = A exp[-E/kT]

No appreciable temperature dependence of E due to temperature variations of the ionization level and the self-consistent Fermi level was observed. The measured value of E was 0.9eV for Hg1-xCdxTe, with x equal to 0.21, 0.3 or 0.43. This energy was almost independent of the value of x.

S.H.Shin, M.Khoshnevisan, C.Morgan-Pond, R.Raghavan: Journal of Applied Physics, 1985, 58[4], 1470-3