Internal Electric Field Behavior of Cadmium Zinc Telluride Radiation Detectors Under High Carrier Injection

The behavior of the internal electric-field of nuclear-radiation detectors substantially affects the detector's performance. We investigated the distribution of the internal field in cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) detectors under high carrier injection. We noted the build-up of a space charge region near the cathode that produces a built-in field opposing the applied field. Its presence entails the collapse of the electric field in the rest of detector, other than the portion near the cathode. Such a space-charge region originates from serious hole-trapping in CZT. The device's operating temperature greatly affects the width of the space-charge region. With increasing temperature from 5 C to 35 C, its width expanded from about 1/6 to 1/2 of the total depth of the detector