The Ternary Cd0.7Zn0.3Se Compound, a Novel Room Temperature X-Ray Detector

A novel ternary semiconductor compound Cd0.7Zn0.3Se has been developed as a nuclear radiation detector. A higher energy band gap comparatively to the binary CdSe enabled the preparation of detectors with a lower leakage current and consequently a lower electronic noise. As a result lower noise threshold could be obtained allowing nuclear spectrometry down to the energy of 6KeV. The charge collection efficiency has been studied as a function of voltage applied to a thin Cd0.7Zn0.3Se platelet. The limitation of transport properties is discussed in terms of bulk trapping versus surface recombination of charge carriers.