Positive terahertz photoconductivity is observed at room temperature in CdHgTe thin films with different Cd contents. We show that electron gas heating caused by Drude-like absorption results in positive photoconductivity because of the interband activation mechanism specific for undoped narrow-gap semiconductors and semimetals. Applying intense terahertz radiation, we observed that the photoconductivity saturates at high intensities, which was found to be caused by absorption bleaching. Both the magnitude of the photoconductivity and the saturation intensity are shown to exhibit an exponential dependence on the hydrostatic pressure. We show that this is a consequence of the fact that both phenomena are controlled by the ratio of energy and momentum relaxation times.

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• High-pressure studies
• Photoconductivity
• Topological materials