Room temperature particle detectors based on indium phosphide

A study of electrical properties and detection performance of particle detectors based on bulk InP and semiconducting LPE layers operated at room temperature is presented. Bulk detectors were fabricated on semi-insulating InP crystals grown by liquid-encapsulated Czochralski (LEC) technique. High purity InP layers of both n- and p-type conductivity were used to fabricate detector structures with p–n junction. The detection performance of particle detectors was measured by pulse-height spectra with alpha particles emitted from 241Am source at room temperature. Better noise properties were achieved for detectors with p–n junctions due to better quality contacts on p-type layers.