Study of contacts to CdZnTe radiation detectors

This study characterizes, for the first time, contacts to CdZnTe radiation detectors by measuring the dark noise spectra as a function of the applied bias. The noise currents are correlated with the dc dark current-voltage characteristics of CdZnTe x-ray and gamma-ray detectors. In order to identify and separate the role of the contacts in the overall performance, the measured noise phenomena is correlated with detector configuration and contact design as well as the growth method of the CdZnTe crystals, contact technology, and passivation. Several contact technologies (electroless gold, and a number of evaporated metallic contacts including gold, indium, zinc, titanium, aluminum, and platinum contacts) are compared. Contacts to CdZnTe crystals grown by high pressure Bridgman are compared with contacts to CdZnTe crystals grown by modified Bridgman. Contacts of resistive detectors as well as of Schottky detectors are reported. Large area symmetric contacts are compared with small area pixelized contacts. The role of the metallization used for contacts, the role of surface effects and passivation, and the role of contact design are discussed.