Radiation damage effects in CZT drift strip detectors

At DSRI, in collaboration with the cyclotron facility at Copenhagen University Hospital, we have performed a study of radiation effects exposing a 2.7 mm thick CZT drift strip detector to 30 MeV protons. The detector characteristics were evaluated after exposure to a number of dose loads in the range from 2*108 to 60*108 p+/cm2. Even for the highest dose loads, which had a dramatic effect on the spectroscopic performance, we were able to recover the detectors after an appropriate annealing procedure. The radiation damage was studied as function of depth inside the detector material. A numerical model that emulates the physical processes of the charge transport in the CZT detector was used to derive the charge trapping parameter , μτe (the product of charge mobility and trapping time) as function of dose. The analysis showed that the electron trapping increased proportional with the proton dose. The radiation contribution to the electron trapping was found to obey the following relation: (μτe)-1rad =(2.5±0.2)*10-7*Φ (V/cm2) with the proton fluence, Φ in p+/cm2. The trapping depth dependence, however, did not agree well the damage profile calculated using the standard Monte Carlo simulations, TRIM for the proton induced radiation effects. The present results suggest that proton induced nuclear reactions contribute significantly to the radiation damage. Further work will elaborate on these effects. The detector energy resolution was investigated as function of proton dose. It was found that the observed degradation is well explained by the decrease of μτe when the fluctuations of the electron path length are taken into account. The proton irradiation produced In meta stable isotopes in the CZT material. Their decay and production yield as function of depth were analyzed.