Improved performance and longevity of large volume thallium bromide devices

Abstract

Thallium bromide (TlBr) is a promising material for room temperature gamma radiation detection due to its high density, high atomic number, and wide bandgap. Additionally, TlBr has a cubic crystal structure and melts congruently at a relatively low temperature. Advances in material purification, crystal growth and device processing have led to improved material quality including a significant increase in the mobility-lifetime product of electrons in TlBr. This has enabled single carrier collection devices with thicknesses of 1 cm and beyond. The arrays have been flip-chip bonded to carrier boards using a low temperature curing conductive polymer. In this paper we report on results from planar and pixelated devices. Planar TlBr devices with dimensions of 12 mm × 12 mm × 7 mm exhibit an energy resolution ranging from 3% to 5% FWHM at 662 keV when using a shaping time of 2 s. The energy resolution in planar devices improves with a reduction of the shaping timing consistent with the expected amelioration of the depth dependence. The 1-cm thick pixelated arrays, with a pitch of 1.72 mm, produce an energy resolution in the anode spectrum ranging from 1.8% to 4.4%, without applying depth corrections. This work presents spectra from a selected pixel for ¹³³Ba and ⁵⁷Co irradiation. Measurements of the room-temperature stability of the planar and pixelated detectors show that the position of the 662-keV photopeak is stable over a period of ~200 days, but the shape of the photopeak in the anode spectra exhibits small changes. These detectors show promise for applications in radio-isotope identification devices and for medical imaging.