Effects of chemo-mechanical polishing on CdZnTe X-ray and gamma-ray detectors

Egarievwe, Stephen E.; Hossain, Anwar; Okwechime, Ifechukwude O.; Gul, Rubi; James, Ralph B.

doi:10.1007/s11664-015-3881-7

Effects of chemo-mechanical polishing on CdZnTe X-ray and gamma-ray detectors

Journal Article · Tue Jun 23 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Journal of Electronic Materials

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-015-3881-7· OSTI ID:1244209

Egarievwe, Stephen E. ^[1]; Hossain, Anwar ^[2]; Okwechime, Ifechukwude O. ^[3]; Gul, Rubi ^[1]; James, Ralph B. ^[2]

Alabama A&M Univ., Normal, AL (United States); Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
Alabama A&M Univ., Normal, AL (United States)

Here, mechanically polishing cadmium zinc telluride (CdZnTe) wafers for x-ray and gamma-ray detectors often is inadequate in removing surface defects caused by cutting them from the ingots. Fabrication-induced defects, such as surface roughness, dangling bonds, and nonstoichiometric surfaces, often are reduced through polishing and etching the surface. In our earlier studies of mechanical polishing with alumina powder, etching with hydrogen bromide in hydrogen peroxide solution, and chemomechanical polishing with bromine–methanol–ethylene glycol solution, we found that the chemomechanical polishing process produced the least surface leakage current. In this research, we focused on using two chemicals to chemomechanically polish CdZnTe wafers after mechanical polishing, viz. bromine–methanol–ethylene glycol (BME) solution, and hydrogen bromide (HBr) in a hydrogen peroxide and ethylene–glycol solution. We used x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), current–voltage (I–V) measurements, and Am-241 spectral response measurements to characterize and compare the effects of each solution. The results show that the HBr-based solution produced lower leakage current than the BME solution. Results from using the same chemomechanical polishing solution on two samples confirmed that the surface treatment affects the measured bulk current (a combination of bulk and surface currents). XPS results indicate that the tellurium oxide to tellurium peak ratios for the mechanical polishing process were reduced significantly by chemomechanical polishing using the BME solution (78.9% for Te 3d_5/2O₂ and 76.7% for Te 3d_3/2O₂) compared with the HBr-based solution (27.6% for Te 3d_5/2O₂ and 35.8% for Te 3d_3/2O₂). Spectral response measurements showed that the 59.5-keV peak of Am-241 remained under the same channel number for all three CdZnTe samples. While the BME-based solution gave a better performance of 7.15% full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) compared with 7.59% FWHM for the HBr-based solution, the latter showed a smaller variation in performance of 0.39% FWHM over 7 days compared with 0.69% for the BME-based solution.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Office of Nonproliferation and Verification Research and Development (NA-22)

OSTI ID:: 1244209

Report Number(s):: BNL--108514-2015-JA; NN2001

Journal Information:: Journal of Electronic Materials, Journal Name: Journal of Electronic Materials Journal Issue: 9 Vol. 44; ISSN 0361-5235

Publisher:: SpringerCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
CdZnTe
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy
chemo-mechanical polishing
leakage current
spectral response

Effects of chemo-mechanical polishing on CdZnTe X-ray and gamma-ray detectors

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References (16)

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