Improved spectrometric characteristics of thallium bromide nuclear radiation detectors

Thallium bromide (TlBr) is a compound semiconductor with a high atomic number and wide band gap. In this study, nuclear radiation detectors have been fabricated from the TlBr crystals. The TlBr crystals were grown by the horizontal travelling molten zone (TMZ) method using the materials purified by many pass zone refining. The crystals were characterized by measuring the resistivity, the mobility–lifetime (μτ) product and the energy required to create an electron–hole pair (the ε value). Improved energy resolution has been obtained by the TlBr radiation detectors. At room temperature the full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) for the 59.5, 122 and 662 keV γ-ray photo peak obtained from the detectors were 3.3, 8.8 and 29.5 keV, respectively. By comparing the saturated peak position of the TlBr detector with that of the CdTe detector, the ε value has been estimated to be about 5.85 eV for the TlBr crystal.