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Cadmium zinc telluride selenide (CdZnTeSe) has shown great promise in reducing the cost of semiconductor nuclear detectors that can operate at room temperature without cryogenic cooling. This is due to the high yield of detector-grade materials in the CdZnTeSe crystal growth process, which can be attributed to the much smaller numbers of Te inclusions and grain boundary network in CdZnTeSe compared to other CdTe-based semiconductors such as CdZnTe. In the present work, we study the effects of surface passivation on CdZnTe detectors using a mixture of ammonium fluoride and hydrogen peroxide solution (NH4F + H2O2 + H2O). Detectors fabricated from CdZnTeSe crystals showed very good energy resolutions: 1.1% for the 662-keV gamma peak of Cs-137 by Frisch-grid detectors, and 5.9% for the 59.6-keV gamma peak of Am-241 by planar detectors. Experimental results show that the leakage current is increased immediately after passivation and then decreases as the surfaces stabilizes. The resistivity of the CdZnTeSe is of the order of 10**10 Ω-cm. The surface passivation improved the energy resolution of planar detector by 18% for the 59.6-keV gamma peak of Am-241.
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Comparative Studies of CdZnTe, CdMnTe, and CdZnTeSe Materials for Room-Temperature Nuclear Detection Applications
Cadmium telluride (CdTe) and its ternary and quaternary compounds have found applications in the development of X-ray and gamma-ray detectors used in nuclear detection and medical imaging applications. Example of these detectors include CdZnTe (CZT), CdMnTe (CMT), and CdZnTeSe (CZTS). These nuclear detectors can operate at room temperature without cryogenic cooling. This paper presents comparative studies of these semiconductor material. The properties studied include detector resistivity, Te inclusions, grain boundary networks, mobility/lifetime of the charge carriers, and energy resolution. The effects of passivation with chemicals such as KOH and NH4F, are also presented. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) studies showed increase in the quantity of TeO2 on surfaces of these materials after passivation in KOH and NH4F. While CZT detector has wide commercial availability, it has more Te inclusions and grain boundary network compared to CZTS. CMT and CZTS have better crystal uniformity than CZT. The comparatively low presence of Te inclusions and grain boundary network in CZTS gives it a higher crystal growth yield for detector-grade material.
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- PAR ID:
- 10356304
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 2021 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference (NSS/MIC)
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 2
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1109/NSS/MIC44867.2021.9875638
