Vanadium-Doped Cadmium Manganese Telluride (Cd1−xMnxTe) Crystals as X- and Gamma-Ray Detectors

CdMnTe offers several potential advantages over CdZnTe as a room- temperature gamma-ray detector, but many drawbacks in its growth process impede the production of large, defect-free single crystals with high electrical resistivity and high electron lifetimes. Here, we report our findings of the defects in several vanadium-doped as-grown as well as annealed Cd1−xMnxTe crystals, using etch pit techniques. We carefully selected single crystals from the raw wafer to fabricate and test as a gamma-ray detector. We describe the quality of the processed Cd1−xMnxTe surfaces, and compare them with similarly treated CdZnTe crystals. We discuss the characterization experiments aimed at clarifying the electrical properties of fabricated detectors, and evaluate their performance as gamma-ray spectrometers.

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