Search

The traditional method for electron lifetime measurements of CdZnTe (CZT) detectors relies on using the Hecht equation. The procedure involves measuring the dependence of the detector response on the applied bias to evaluate the μτ product, which in turn can be converted into the carrier lifetime. Despite general acceptance of this technique, which is very convenient for comparative testing of different CZT materials, the assumption of a constant electric field inside a detector is unjustified. In the Hecht equation, this assumption means that the drift time would be a linear function of the distance. This condition is not fulfilled in practice at low applied biases, where the Hecht equation is most sensitive to the μs product. As a result, researchers usually take measurements at relatively high biases, which work well in the case of the low μτ-product material, <10-3 cm²/V, but give significantly underestimated values for the case of high μτ-product crystals. In this work, we applied the drift-time method to measure the electron lifetimes in long-drift-length (4 cm) standard-grade CZT detectors produced by the Redlen Technologies. We found that the electron μτ product of tested crystals is in the range 0.1-0.2 cm²/V, which is an order of the magnitude higher than any value previously reported for a CZT material. In comparison, using the Hecht equation fitting, we obtained μτ=2.3 × 10-2 cm²/V for a 2-mm thin planar detector fabricated from the same CZT material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated the feasibility of long-drift-time CdZnTe (CZT) gamma-ray detectors, fabricated from CZT material produced by Redlen Technologies. CZT crystals with cross-section areas of 5 × 5mm² and 6 × 6mm² and thicknesses of 20-, 30-, 40-, and 50-mm were configured as 3D position-sensitive drift detectors and were read out using a front-end ASIC. By correcting the electron charge losses caused by defects in the crystals, we demonstrated high performance for relatively thick detectors fabricated from unselected CZT material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CdZnTe (CZT) is a promising medium for room-temperature gamma-ray detectors. However, the low production yield of acceptable quality crystals hampers the use of CZT detectors for gammaray spectroscopy. Significant efforts have been directed towards improving quality of CZT crystals to make them generally available for radiation detectors. Another way to address this problem is to implement detector designs that would allow for more accurate and predictable correction of the charge loss associated with crystal defects. In this work, we demonstrate that high-granularity position-sensitive detectors can significantly improve the performance of CZT detectors fabricated from CZT crystals with wider acceptance boundaries, leading to an increase of their availability and expected decrease in cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a low-noise wide-band transimpedance amplifier designed to measure the spectral noise densities of currents in submicroamplere range. Design of the feedback transimpedance amplifier; Description of the design criteria and experimental tests.

We developed a robust and low-cost array of virtual Frisch-grid CdZnTe detectors coupled to a front-end readout application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for spectroscopy and imaging of gamma rays. The array operates as a self-reliant detector module. It is comprised of 36 close-packed 6 × 6 × 15 mm(3) detectors grouped into 3 × 3 sub-arrays of 2 × 2 detectors with the common cathodes. The front-end analog ASIC accommodates up to 36 anode and 9 cathode inputs. Several detector modules can be integrated into a single- or multi-layer unit operating as a Compton or a coded-aperture camera. We present the results from testing two fully assembled modules and readout electronics. The further enhancement of the arrays' performance and reduction of their cost are possible by using position-sensitive virtual Frisch-grid detectors, which allow for accurate corrections of the response of material non-uniformities caused by crystal defects.