Advanced devices and systems for radiation measurements

摘要

The authors' most recent work continues their long-standing efforts to develop semiconductor detectors based on the collection of only a single type of charge carrier. Their best results are an extension of the principle of coplanar electrodes first described by Paul Luke of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory 18 months ago. This technique, described in past progress reports, has the effect of deriving an output signal from detectors that depends only on the motion of carriers close to one surface. Since nearly all of these carriers are of one type (electrons) that are attracted to that electrode, the net effect is to nearly eliminate the influence of hole motion on the properties of the output signal. The result is that the much better mobility of electrons in compound semiconductors materials such as CZT can now be exploited without the concurrent penalty of poor hole collection. They have also developed new techniques in conjunction with the coplanar electrode principle that extends the technique into a new dimension. By proper processing of signals from the opposite electrode (the cathode) from the coplanar surface, they are able to derive a signal that is a good indication of the depth of interaction at which the charge carriers were initially formed. They have been the first group to demonstrate this technique, and examples of separate pulse height spectra recorded at a variety of different depths of interaction are shown in several of the figures that follow. Obtaining depth information is one step in the direction of obtaining volumetric point-of-interaction information from the detector. If one could known the coordinates of each specific interaction, then corrections could be applied to account for the inhomogeneities that currently plague many room-temperature devices.