Improvement of the sensitivity of CdTe semiconductor detector in the high energy region

Cadmium Telluride, CdTe, semiconductor detectors have sufficient band gap energy (1.47 eV) to use at room temperature, and their atomic number are so large (48 and 52) that their photon detection efficiency is more excellent than that of Si or Ge. Recently CdTe crystals have become easily available because of improvements in the crystal growth method. It is a useful X-ray detector, because it has good energy resolution and high efficiency at the full energy peak at less than a few hundred keV of incident photon energy. However, if the incident photon energy become higher, the efficiency of the full energy peak become worse, and it is very difficult to distinguish the full energy peak above 1 MeV, because the mobility of charge carriers in the CdTe crystal is much smaller than in Si and Ge and it is difficult to produce a larger volume element. In order to analyze the energy of several radioisotopes, it is necessary to improve the sensitivity of CdTe detectors in high energy regions. We have previously suggested a multilayered structure of CdTe elements. This paper describes a simulation and experiment to improve the efficiency of the full energy peak in the high energy region above 1 MeV. (author)