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This study characterizes, for the first time, contacts to CdZnTe radiation detectors by measuring the dark noise spectra as a function of the applied bias. The noise currents are correlated with the dc dark current-voltage characteristics of CdZnTe x-ray and gamma-ray detectors. In order to identify and separate the role of the contacts in the overall performance, the measured noise phenomena is correlated with detector configuration and contact design as well as the growth method of the CdZnTe crystals, contact technology, and passivation. Several contact technologies (electroless gold, and a number of evaporated metallic contacts including gold, indium, zinc, titanium, aluminum, and platinum contacts) are compared. Contacts to CdZnTe crystals grown by high pressure Bridgman are compared with contacts to CdZnTe crystals grown by modified Bridgman. Contacts of resistive detectors as well as of Schottky detectors are reported. Large area symmetric contacts are compared with small area pixelized contacts. The role of the metallization used for contacts, the role of surface effects and passivation, and the role of contact design are discussed.

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Systematic measurements of dark noise spectra of CdZnTe x-and γ-ray spectrometers, correlated with the dc I-V characteristics and detector technology, are reported. The dark noise of two innovative CdZnTe spectrometer configurations are studied: metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) resistive detectors with three terminals as well as heterostructure PIN detectors with thermally evaporated n + CdS and p + ZnTe contacts, which are fabricated on high pressure Bridgman CdZnTe (Zn = 10%) crystals. The two innovative CdZnTe spectrometer configurations presented here exhibit very low dark (leakage) current. By reducing the dc value of the dark (leakage) current below 1 nA, shot noise becomes the dominant noise mechanism and the contribution of 1/f noise becomes negligible. The use of non-injecting contacts (evaporated gold) for the MSM detectors and the operation of the PIN detector in the reverse bias mode prevent generationrecombination noise which becomes dominant with injecting contacts (for example MSM detectors with evaporated indium and titanium contacts) or when operating the PIN detector in the forward bias mode. Surface leakage is reduced by applying surface passivation but is eliminated only by using the three terminal MSM configuration which exhibits simple shot noise instead of the suppressed shot noise observed in the two terminal MSM spectrometers. The noise measurements are useful for optimizing detector technology.

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Numerical calculations of graded HgTe/CdTe heterojunction (HJ) band diagrams at equilibrium are presented and discussed. The calculations are performed in the entire compositional range (0<x<1), using a nonparabolic conduction band and Fermi-Dirac statistics. The dependence of barrier formation at graded HJs are examined as a function of the graded region width and the graded region doping profiles. The graded region width and doping profiles were found to be the two main factors that determine whether barriers are formed as well as their shape and magnitude. The calculated results indicate that epitaxial ohmic HgTe contacts to extrinsic CdTe are possible, provided that the graded region is wider than one micron, and that it has the same doping type as the doping of the substrate with equal or higher absolute value. Further numerical calculations take into consideration the possible existence of distributed interface charges in the graded region of the HJ. It is shown that by assuming a classical transport over the potential barrier, the effective graded interface charge can be determined from the zero bias differential resistance of the HJ. Experimental transport measurements of metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) grown HgTe/p-CdTe graded HJs show a varying degree of rectification, indicating variations in the graded interface charge distributions which result from different MOCVD growth conditions.

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