The Effect of Exposure to Various Gaseous Environments on the Subsequent Performance of High Purity Germanium Gamma Ray Detectors

3 Semiconductor Detectors

“…In order to reduce the leakage current to 10" 11 -10" 10 A at 1-5 kV, depending on the detector shape and thickness, surface passivation treatments and/or protective coatings (mainly consisting of deposition of silicon oxide [46], amorphous hydrogenated germanium [47], or germanium oxide [48]) and special detector shapes involving grooves are being used. Special attention has been paid towards the study of surface sensitivity as it can be a major parameter on the final detector properties [49,50]. On the other hand, improper surface preparation may lead to surface channels behaving like dead layers and resulting in charge collection losses [51], The first coaxial high purity germanium detector (5.6 cm 3 ) was fabricated twenty years ago [52], Its resolution for 1.33 MeV γ-rays was 2 keV.…”