Study and development of new CdTe and CdZnTe detection structures for X and γ imagery

The aim of this study is to show the interest of applying cadmium telluride (CdTe) for X- and γ- ray imaging applications, with specific technological (via contact nature) and geometric (via Frisch grids) structures suited for each application. This work is divided into three different but complementary parts: the first part describes a simulation model which allows a better understanding of CdTe based γ- ray detectors. The new feature of this model compared to previous ones, is that it is able to take into account the electric field's non uniform spatial distribution inside the detector s. The results enable us to de-convolute the influence of material and contact parameters on the spectrometric performances (energy resolution and peak/valley ratio) of CdTe based detectors; the second part presents different technological structures deposited upon CdTe, (grown by two different methods, i.e Bridgman and High Pressure Bridgman). These structures were characterised in X- and γ- ray detection; theoretical models are developed which allow a certain insight into the detection properties of each couple (material + contact); the third part deals with new contact geometries which allow a screening effect of the bulk (analogous to the Frisch grid effect in gaseous detectors) resulting in improved energy resolution and peak/valley ratios; encouraging first results on prototypes are presented and discussed. This work has allowed a better understanding of physical behaviour of CdTe based detectors, coupled with advances in technological issues to upgrade the overall performances of these detectors for application in X- and γ- ray imaging. (author)