Fabrication of GaSe radiation detectors and the detection of alpha particles

GaSe has been studied as a radiation detector which operates at room temperature. In this study the effect of Ge doping was investigated. The energy resolution for 241Am 5.5 MeV alpha particles did not improve by the addition of Ge, inspite of the substantial decrease in the leakage current. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that all detectors with Ge concentration from about 0.01 to 1 at% showed fairly good energy resolutions not so inferier to the best one of pure GaSe detectors, although many pure GaSe detectors did not operate because of their too large leakage currents. (author)