We present an experimental observation of the transition of different indirect tunnelling processes inp-type HgCdTe. The results demonstrate that the indirect tunnel currents via Shockley–Read–Hall traps exhibit a transition from thermally assisted tunneling to two-step indirect tunneling over a temperature range of 25–200 K, which enables independent measurements to be made on the two processes. A 55 meV trap level which contributes strongly to the indirect tunneling mechanisms was estimated by measuring the activation energy. ©1998 American Institute of Physics.