Charge transport properties in CdZnTe detectors grown by the vertical Bridgman technique

Abstract

Presently, a great amount of effort is being devoted to the development of CdTe and CdZnTe (CZT) detectors for a large variety of applications such as medical, industrial, and space research. We present the spectroscopic properties of some CZT crystals grown by the standard vertical Bridgman method and by the boron oxide encapsulated vertical Bridgman method, which has been recently implemented at IMEM-CNR (Parma, Italy). In this technique, the crystal is grown in an open quartz crucible fully encapsulated by a thin layer of liquid boron oxide. This method prevents contact between the crystal and the crucible, thereby allowing larger single grains with a lower dislocation density to be obtained. Several mono-electrode detectors were realized, with each having two planar gold contacts. The samples are characterized by an active area of about 7 mm × 7 mm and thicknesses ranging from 1 to 2 mm. The charge transport properties of the detectors have been studied by mobility-lifetime (μ × τ) product measurements, carried out at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (Grenoble, France) in the planar transverse field configuration, where the impinging beam direction is orthogonal to the collecting electric field. We have performed several fine scans between the electrodes with a beam spot of 10 μm × 10 μm at various energies from 60 to 400 keV. In this work, we present the test results in terms of the (μ × τ) product of both charge carriers.