Ionizing radiation detector
AssigneeSandia National Laboratories
InventorsGomez W. Wright, Ralph B. James, Arnold Burger, Douglas A. Chinn
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Abstract
A CdZnTe (CZT) crystal provided with a native CdO dielectric coating to reduce surface leakage currents and thereby, improve the resolution of instruments incorporating detectors using CZT crystals is disclosed. A two step process is provided for forming the dielectric coating which includes etching the surface of a CZT crystal with a solution of the conventional bromine/methanol etch treatment, and passivating the CZT crystal surface with a solution of 10 w/o NH4F and 10 w/o H2O2 in water after attaching electrical contacts to the crystal surface.
Claims7
An ionizing radiation detector, comprising:
- a CdZnTe crystal having one or more surfaces;
- and
- a passivating dielectric layer grown on said surfaces, said layer consisting essentially of CdO.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.