Characterization of bismuth tri-iodide single crystals for wide band-gap semiconductor radiation detectors

Growth, fabrication, and testing of bismuth tri-iodide semiconductor radiation detectors

“…4, the resistivity value obtained from the IeV curves was on the order of 10 10 U-cm. This value is orders of magnitude higher than the previously reported value of resistivity of the BiI 3 detectors which were fabricated from crystals grown using commercial powder (Lintereur et al, 2011). Thus it may be hypothesized that the increase in resistivity may be correlated to the increase in the purity of the crystals.…”

“…The hole mobility could not be estimated because the signal generated at the cathode was too weak to measure. Previous research had reported the electron mobility to be 260 ± 50 cm 2 /V for BiI 3 single crystals grown by the vertical Bridgman method (Lintereur et al, 2011) and 4.4 cm 2 /V for BiI 3 platelets grown by PVD (Fornaro et al, 2004b). Charge carrier mobility depends on the concentration of traps and defects in the detector crystal.…”

“…The BiI 3 crystal growth by the modified vertical Bridgman method was carried out using the same procedure as described elsewhere (Lintereur et al, 2011). For crystal growth the PVT synthesized ultra-pure powder was sealed in a Pyrex glass ampoule under a vacuum of 10 À7 Torr.…”

Investigation of Bismuth Triiodide (BiI3) for Photovoltaic Applications

“…To demonstrate this approach, we investigate the potential of bismuth triiodide (BiI 3 ) as a photovoltaic absorber, through both theory and experiment. BiI 3 has a long history of study in X-ray detectors, 4-7 given its high density and high atomic number of constituent elements, few competing phases in the Bi-I system, 4 wide bandgap of 1.67 eV, 8 large static dielectric constant (albeit anisotropic), 9 and an electron mobility that has been measured as high as 260±50 cm 2 /(V·s) or 1000±200 cm 2 /(V·s) with Sb-doping. 4,10 The hole mobility is expected to be much lower due to the difference in carrier effective masses; previously we calculated the hole and electron effective masses in the BiI 3 R3 phase to be 10.39 and 1.85, respectively.…”

Research Update: Bismuth-based perovskite-inspired photovoltaic materials

“…Single crystal bismuth compounds have previously been grown using this method for application in scintillators, X-ray detectors, and as ferroelectric materials. [46][47][48][49][50][51] Here, we review the techniques that have been used to grow and characterize single crystals of a selection of bismuth-based compounds, before discussing thin film synthesis. The learnings from these materials can be applied to new bismuth-based compounds that researchers may wish to fabricate.…”