Radiation
detectors based on metal halide perovskite (MHP) single
crystals (SCs) have exhibited exceptional sensitivity, low detection
limit, and remarkable energy resolution. However, the operational
stability issue still dramatically impedes their commercialization
due to degradation induced by high-energy irradiation and large bias.
Here, we propose an innovative infrared healing strategy to restore
the devices that have undergone severe damage from both long-term
biasing and X-ray irradiation. Compared to the slow and inefficient
intrinsic self-healing process of MHPs, the infrared healing method
demonstrates the capacity to achieve rapid recovery of the detection
performance of the degraded devices within just 1 h. We reveal that
the healing mechanism is mainly related to the reduction of the ion-migration
activation energy in MHP SCs under infrared illumination, which promotes
the back diffusion of the displaced ions to their original lattice
positions and remedies defects. Finally, the healing effect is further
confirmed through the gamma-ray spectroscopy acquisition with degraded
MHP SCs, whose energy resolution at 59.5 keV of 241Am source
is improved from 36% to 12% following infrared illumination. These
results present infrared healing as a simple and economic method to
extend the service life of MHP SC-based detectors.