The establishment of a technique for mercury iodide (HgI2) purification and crystal growth is described, aiming this crystal future application as room temperature radiation semiconductor detectors. Repeated Physical Vapor Transport (PVT) technique was studied for purification and growth of the crystal. To evaluate the purification efficiency, measurements of the impurity concentration were made after each growth, analyzing the trace impurities. A significant decrease of the impurity concentration, resulting from the purification number, was observed. A significant improvement in the HgI2 radiation detector performance was achieved for purer crystals, growing the crystal twice by the PVT technique.
Two commercially available TlBr salts were used as the raw material for crystal growths to be used as radiation detectors. Previously, TlBr salts were purified once, twice, and three times by the repeated Bridgman method. The purification efficiency was evaluated by inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS), after each purification process. A compartmental model was proposed to fit the impurity concentration as a function of the repetition number of the Bridgman growths, as well as determine the segregation coefficients of impurities in the crystals. The crystalline structure, the stoichiometry, and the surface morphology of the crystals were evaluated, systematically, for the crystals grown with different purification numbers. To evaluate the crystal as a radiation semiconductor detector, measurements of its resistivity and gamma-ray spectroscopy were carried out, using 241Am and 133Ba sources. A significant improvement of the radiation response was observed in function of the crystal purity.
This work describes the experimental procedure of purification and preparation of BiI 3 crystals by Repeated Vertical Bridgman technique, aiming a future application of this semiconductor crystal as a room temperature radiation detector. The BiI 3 powder used as raw material was purified three times and, at each purification, the crystal was evaluated by systematic measurements of the reduction of the impurities, crystalline structure, stoichiometry and surface morphology. The reduction of the trace metal impurities in the BiI 3 , at each purification, was analyzed by Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA), in order to evaluate the efficiency of the purification technique established in this work. It was demonstrated that the Repeated Bridgman technique is effective to reduce the concentration of many impurities in BiI 3 , such as Ag, As, Br, Cr, K, Mo, Na and Sb. The crystalline structure of the BiI 3 crystal purified twice and three times was similar to BiI 3 pattern. However, for BiI 3 powder and purified once, an intensity contribution of the BiOI was observed in the diffractograms. Improvement in the stoichiometric ratio was observed at each purification step, as well as the crystal surface morphology.
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