Analyses of crystal growth, optical, electrical, thermal and mechanical properties of an excellent detector-grade Cd0.9Mn0.1Te: V crystal

Lijun Luan,Dan Zheng,Tao Wang,Yi He,Haohao Lv,Pengfei Yu,Li Gao

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-59612-0

Lijun Luan, Dan Zheng + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-59612-0

Copy DOI

Abstract

A high-quality cadmium manganese tellurium (Cd0.9Mn0.1Te: V or VCMT) crystal was successfully grown via modified Te solution vertical Bridgman method with vanadium doping. The crystal structure and quality were evaluated by powder X-ray diffraction analysis. An infrared transmission spectroscope measured the transmittance of the crystal at 64%, which would suggest that the grown crystal possessed high purity and crystallinity. Ultraviolet-visible-near-infrared spectroscopy analysis obtained the forbidden band width of approximately 1.577 eV. The current-voltage test indicated that the VCMT crystal had a high resistivity of 2.07 × 1010 Ω·cm. Mechanical properties were measured by a Vickers microhardness tester. Crack surface morphology around the indentation was recorded. Furthermore, mechanical properties, such as microhardness, fracture toughness, brittleness index and yield strength were investigated and discussed. The thermal stability of the VCMT single crystal was determined by thermogravimetric analysis. A VCMT detector was fabricated with planar configuration structure, which showed a resolution of 11.62% of the 241Am at 59.5 keV peak.

Highlights

A high-quality cadmium manganese tellurium (Cd0.9Mn0.1Te: V or Vanadium-doped Cd0.9Mn0.1Te (VCMT)) crystal was successfully grown via modified Te solution vertical Bridgman method with vanadium doping
The X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns of as-grown crystal and the standard patterns (PDF No 65-8867) are shown in Fig. 1(a), where all the results indicate that the crystal is characterised by a zinc-blende structure, which implies that the crystal growth process successfully restrains the solid phase transformation
The successful growth of a large single crystal of vanadium-doped Cd0.9Mn0.1Te: V was achieved by the vertical Bridgman (VB) technique

Summary

Introduction

A high-quality cadmium manganese tellurium (Cd0.9Mn0.1Te: V or VCMT) crystal was successfully grown via modified Te solution vertical Bridgman method with vanadium doping. Crack surface morphology around the indentation was recorded Mechanical properties, such as microhardness, fracture toughness, brittleness index and yield strength were investigated and discussed. The mechanical properties of semiconductor materials change due to dislocations introduced by the fabrication process of devices. These dislocations affect carrier density, carrier mobility and lifetime, thereby influencing the photoelectric properties of the crystal. The quality evaluation and crystal structure were analysed by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), ultraviolet-visible-near infrared (UV-VIS-NIR) spectra and Fourier transform infrared spectroscope (FT-IR) to provide information on the material band gap width. The current-voltage (I-V) characteristics and gamma-ray spectral were measured to calculate the resistivity and the energy resolution of the crystalfor the detector application

Methods

Results

Conclusion