Assessment of cadmium-zinc-telluride detectors for hard-X-ray astronomy

The detectors under study are precursors to those that will be used at the focal plane of the High Energy Replicated Optics (HERO) telescope currently being developed at the National Space Science and Technology Center and Marshall Space Flight Center. We discuss energy resolution across two 16x16 pixel arrays for 1-mm and 2-mm thick detectors that have a pixel pitch of 300 μm and inter-pixel gap of 50 μm. Additionally, we discuss 3D depth sensing, via the cathode to anode ratio, in a 2-mm thick 4x4 pixel array with pixel pitch of 750 μm and inter-pixel gap of 100 μm. In order to improve our simulations, we discuss electric field modeling for this detector geometry and the role this mapping will play in terms of charge sharing and charge loss in the detector.