Development of nuclear radiation detectors with energy discrimination capabilities based on thick CdTe layers grown by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy

We report on the development of nuclear radiation detectors based on epitaxially grown thick single crystalline CdTe layers. The optimization of the CdTe growth on the GaAs substrates in a metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy resulted high-structural quality and thick CdTe layers of thickness up to 200 mum. Radiation detectors were fabricated by growing a 2-5 mum thick iodine-doped n-CdTe buffer layer on the n ⁺-GaAs substrate, followed by about 100 mum thick undoped p-like CdTe layer. The heterojunction diode detectors exhibited good rectification property and good charge transport property. The detector showed reverse bias leakage currents typically from 1 to 5 muA/cm² at 40V bias, and clearly demonstrated its energy discrimination capability by resolving the 59.54 keV gamma peak from the ²⁴¹Am radioisotope during the radiation detection test. Some results on direct growth of CdTe epilayers on Si substrates are also presented