Improved performance lead iodide nuclear radiation detectors

Melt-grown lead iodide single crystals with an improved transport of positive charge carriers (holes) have been developed. It is shown that an energy resolution of about 3% can be obtained for gamma-radiation at 60 keV (241Am isotope source). Improvement of the spectrometric performance of lead iodide detectors at lower gamma-ray energies has been achieved as well due to better purification of the starting material and optimization of the etching procedure. Correlation between the detector performance and the structure of lead iodide crystals has been studied using X-ray diffraction analysis.