Evaluation of CdZnTeSe as a high-quality gamma-ray spectroscopic material with better compositional homogeneity and reduced defects

Utpal N Roy; Giuseppe S Camarda; Yonggang Cui; Rubi Gul; Ge Yang; Jakub Zazvorka; Vaclav Dedic; Jan Franc; Ralph B James

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-43778-3

Evaluation of CdZnTeSe as a high-quality gamma-ray spectroscopic material with better compositional homogeneity and reduced defects

Sci Rep. 2019 May 13;9(1):7303. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-43778-3.

Authors

Utpal N Roy¹, Giuseppe S Camarda², Yonggang Cui², Rubi Gul², Ge Yang^{2

3}, Jakub Zazvorka⁴, Vaclav Dedic⁴, Jan Franc⁴, Ralph B James^{2

5}

Affiliations

¹ Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, 11973, USA. uroy@bnl.gov.
² Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, 11973, USA.
³ North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, 27695-7909, USA.
⁴ Institute of Physics, Charles University, Ke Karlovu 5, Prague, 121 16, Czech Republic.
⁵ Savannah River National Laboratory, Aiken, SC, 29808, USA.

Abstract

X- and gamma-ray detectors have broad applications ranging from medical imaging to security, non-proliferation, high-energy physics and astrophysics. Detectors with high energy resolution, e.g. less than 1.5% resolution at 662 keV at room temperature, are critically important in most uses. The efficacy of adding selenium to the cadmium zinc telluride (CdZnTe) matrix for radiation detector applications has been studied. In this paper, the growth of a new quaternary compound Cd_0.9Zn_0.1Te_0.98Se_0.02 by the Traveling Heater Method (THM) is reported. The crystals possess a very high compositional homogeneity with less extended defects, such as secondary phases and sub-grain boundary networks. Virtual Frisch-grid detectors fabricated from as-grown ingots revealed ~0.87-1.5% energy resolution for 662-keV gamma rays. The superior material quality with a very low density of defects and very high compositional homogeneity heightens the likelihood that Cd_0.9Zn_0.1Te_0.98Se_0.02 will be the next generation room-temperature detector material.