SBIR Phase I: Advanced CdZnTe for Room Temperature Radiation Detection

这个小型企业创新研究第一阶段项目解决了限制镉-锌-碲化物/碲化镉辐射探测器应用的根本问题。目前，X射线和伽马射线设备行业生产医学成像、制造和安检仪器是一项数十亿美元的业务。室温碲锌镉/碲化镉探测器和阵列似乎是传感元件的明显选择。然而，经过四十年的研究，仍然存在许多问题。目前尚不清楚为什么生产碲化镉锌镉探测器的产量仍然如此之低。基于半导体物理，有两个参数是决定探测器性能的最关键因素：施主或受主的深能级需要钉扎在禁带中部附近的费米能级，以及必须避免捕获载流子的缺陷。这项研究的潜在商业应用可被加速器实验室的研究人员用于颗粒分析、科学家用于结晶学、安全人员用于检查、工程师用于控制包装(如装瓶)以及许多医疗应用。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project addresses the fundamentalissues limiting the applications of Cadmium-Zinc-Telluride/Cadmium Telluride radiation detectors. Currently, x-ray and gamma ray equipment industry producing medical imaging, manufacturing, and security inspection instrument is a multi-billion dollar business. Room temperature Cadmium-Zinc-Telluride/Cadmium Telluride detectors and arrays appear to be the obvious choice as the sensing elements. However, after forty years of research, many problems remain. It was not clear why the yield in producing Cadmium-Zinc-Telluride/Cadmium Telluride detectors is still so low. Based on semiconductor physics, two parameters are most crucial in determining the detector performance: the need of the deep level of donor or acceptors to pin the Fermi level near the middle of the bandgap and the necessity to avoid defects which trap the carriers. Potential commercial applications of the research can be used by researchers at accelerator laboratories for particle analysis, by scientists for crystallography, by security personnel for inspection, by engineers for the control of packaging such as bottling, and for numerous medical applications.