Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A 633 (2011) S134–S136

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Nuclear Instruments and Methods in

Physics Research A
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/nima

Spectrometric performance of CdZnTe ring detectors

Anna Bulycheva a,n, Vladimir Kondratjev a, Vladimir Gostilo a, Victor Ivanov b
a
Bruker Baltic, Ganibu dambis 26, Riga, LV-1005, Latvia
b
Ritec, Aizkraukles 23, Riga, LV-1006, Latvia

a r t i c l e in f o a b s t r a c t

Available online 19 June 2010 Spectrometric performance of CdZnTe ring detectors based on the crystals with area 5  5 mm2 and
Keywords: thickness of 0.5–1.5 mm are presented. Fabricated detectors provided the energy resolution 0.58; 0.92;
CdZnTe ring detector 1.63; and 5.14 keV for energies 5.9; 59.6; 122; and 662 keV correspondingly. Peak/background ratio for
Spectrometric performance energy 122 keV was 56.1. The test results of detection unit with CdZnTe ring detectors demonstrate the
principal ability to create small dimension spectrometers with such detectors operating in energy range
of 5–662 keV at ambient temperature up to + 65 1C with high energy resolution and high temperature
stability.
& 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The ring structure of Si detectors was proposed by Kemmer
and Lutz [1] for significant improvement of the spectrometric
performance in low energy range based on the low capacity of
collecting electrode and excellent collection of carriers in detector
crystal. Abbene et al. [2], Owens and Kozorezov [3], and
Kozorezov et al. [4] considered that the ring structure of
electrodes can also provide for high performance of CdZnTe
detectors for X-ray registration in medical, XRF, and other
applications. They all investigated the electrophysical processes
in CdZnTe detectors with such contact structure [2–4]. In this
work the authors pay more attention to the spectrometric
performance of such detectors in a wide range of energy and
temperature conditions to demonstrate their possible utility in
different applications.
In the design of the ring electrodes structure, proposed initially
by Abbene et al. [2], one side of the crystal includes solid contact
and the opposite side a ring electrode structure with a point
central electrode for charge collection and two rings for shaping
the electric field in the crystal. The rest of the crystal surface is
overlapped by the guard ring GR.
Such a detector structure can operate in two modes of charge
collection—hemispherical (Fig. 1(a)) and drift (Fig. 1(b)). The
distribution of the force lines in the crystal for each mode are
shown in Fig. 1(a) and (b).
The figures show that the operative volume is more in drift
charge collection mode than in hemispherical mode. But, in this
structure, the geometry of the rings becomes more important in
n
Corresponding author: Tel.: + 371 6738 3947; fax: +371 6738 2620.
E-mail address: a.bulycheva@bruker-baltic.lv (A. Bulycheva).
shaping the detector field. The same was confirmed by experi-
mental testing of the detectors [3,4].
2. Detectors fabrication
For detector fabrication, crystals with an area of 5  5 mm2 and
thickness of 0.5–1.5 mm were used. They had specific resistivity
of (1.0–10)  10  10 O cm, and (mt)e value of (1.1–1.8)  10  3
cm2/V.
The fabrication was done using the standard technology of
multidetector structures with Au contact deposition [5]. The
fabricated detector crystal was placed on a hybrid microassembly
which included a FET 2N4416, a feedback resistor 10 GO, a
feedback capacitor and a temperature sensor PT-100 (Fig. 2a). The
microassembly with detector was installed on the two stages
Peltier cooler that provided temperature up to 20 1C in a
standard case TO-8 (16 pin). The cap of the case had a 200-mm-
thick Be window to allow low energy range measurements
(Fig. 2b).
3. Results and discussions
The spectrometric performance of the CdZnTe ring detectors
was investigated using the complete detection unit. The detection
unit (Fig. 3) is a functional unit comprising preliminary amplifier,
HV converter with bias voltage circuits adjustment for detector’s
electrodes, system for temperature stabilization of the detector
crystal, the outer cooling system with Peltier cooler that enables
operability of the detection unit at temperatures of up to 65 1C.
More than 10 detectors, each with an area of 5  5 mm2 and
thickness of 0.5–1.5 mm, were manufactured. The resistance

0168-9002/$ - see front matter & 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.nima.2010.06.147
 A. Bulycheva et al. / Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A 633 (2011) S134–S136
Fig. 1. CdZnTe ring detector: (a) hemisphere mode and (b) drift mode.
Fig. 2. Ring CZT detector: (a) assembly and (b) detector in case TO-8.
Fig. 3. Ring CZT detector with electronics.
between the neighboring ring structure elements at 10 V was
higher than 55 GO for all the detectors. The detectors’ bias
voltages were in the range 100–140 V and their optimum shaping
time was within the range 0.8–1.5 ms. The optimum working
temperature of the detectors was + 20 1C on collection of charge
in middle and high energies 20–600 keV, and 0 to  20 1C in
the low energy range (below 20 keV). Evidently, more cooling
was required at the registration of low energies to decrease the
leakage current of detectors and thus to get better energy
resolution at these energies.
The best spectra of Fe-55, Am-241, Co-57 are presented in
Figs. 4 and 5. Energy resolutions 0.58, 0.92, 1.63, and 5.14 keV
were obtained for the detectors at energies of 5.9, 59.6, 122, and
662 keV, respectively.
The measurements show that the detectors’ energy resolutions
are almost identical in hemispherical and drift modes. But, the
registration efficiency at 122 keV is about 1.5 times higher in the
drift mode than that in the hemispherical mode.
The peak/background ratio was 56.1 for hemispherical mode
and 20.8 for the drift mode.
S135
Fig. 4. Am-241 spectrum of CZT ring detector (T¼  6 1C, shaping time 1.4 ms)
(Res. 59.6–0.92 keV).
Fig. 5. Co-57 spectrum of CdZnTe ring detector (hemispherical mode) (Res. 122–
1.63 keV).
However, the charge collection conditions were not ideal in the
drift mode, and this leads to a low energy tail of the peak of total
absorption.
One reason for this is that the structure of rings is not optimal
for the drift mode of detector operation. For more uniform drift
charge collection, more rings are required to shape the field in the
crystal.
It was also found that detector parameters inside detection
unit were stable in a wide range of temperature conditions. The
centroid peak shift at energy of 122 keV (the external temperature
range 20–65 1C) was 0.2% or 0.0045%/C. The energy resolution
changes in this temperature range were not more than 3.75%.
4. Conclusions
The test results of CdZnTe detector with ring structure
demonstrate the feasibility of creating detectors that can operate
in the energy range 5–662 keV with acceptable resolutions of 0.6
and 6 keV. In the 20–662 keV range, detectors do not practically
require any cooling to give their best performance. At the same
time, temperature stabilization of detectors with 20 W power
S136 A. Bulycheva et al. / Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A 633 (2011) S134–S136
provides, in the external temperature range 20–65 1C, a centroid
peak displacement of 0.2% at 122 keV energy. The energy
resolution changes in this temperature range are less than 3.75%.
The characteristic feature of the detector is its ability to
operate in both hemispherical and drift modes of charge
collection. Although the energy resolution is virtually identical
in both cases, the charge collection in drift mode increases by
almost 1.5 times as compared to that in hemispherical mode.
However, the collecting terms in the case of the drift mode are not
ideal at the existing topology of rings, and that leads to the
appearance of low energy tail of the peak of total absorption.
Topology optimization, using computer simulation of the optimal
structure, should lead to improvement of the CdZnTe ring
detectors spectrometric characteristics in the drift mode.
References
[1] J. Kemmer, G. Lutz, Nucl. Instr. and Meth. A 235 (1987) 365.
[2] L. Abbene, S. Del Sordo, A. Cola, et al., Nucl. Instr. and Meth. A 583 (2007) 324.
[3] A. Owens, A.G. Kozorezov, Nucl. Instr. and Meth. A 563 (2006) 31.
[4] A.G. Kozorezov, A. Owens, V. Gostilo, et al., J. Appl. Phys. 102 (2007) 054505.
[5] V. Gostilo, V. Ivanov, S. Kostenko, et al., Nucl. Instr. and Meth. A 460 (1) (2001)
27.