UC Berkeley

High-purity germanium (HPGe) radiation detectors are well established as a valuable tool in nuclear science, astrophysics, and nuclear security applications. HPGe detectors excel in gamma-ray spectroscopy, offering excellent energy resolution with large detector sizes for high radiation detection efficiency. Although a robust fabrication process has been developed, improvement is needed, especially in developing electrical contact and surface passivation technology for position-sensitive detectors. A systematic study is needed to understand how the detector fabrication process impacts detector performance and reliability. In order to provide position sensitivity, the electrical contacts are segmented to form multiple electrodes. This segmentation creates new challenges in the fabrication process and warrants consideration of additional detector effects related to the segmentation.

A key area of development is the creation of the electrical contacts in a way that enables reliable operation, provides low electronic noise, and allows fine segmentation of electrodes, giving position sensitivity for radiation interactions in the detector. Amorphous semiconductor contacts have great potential to facilitate new HPGe detector designs by providing a thin, high-resistivity surface coating that is the basis for electrical contacts that block both electrons and holes and can easily be finely segmented. Additionally, amorphous semiconductor coatings form a suitable passivation layer to protect the HPGe crystal surface from contamination. This versatility allows a simple fabrication process for fully passivated, finely segmented detectors.

However, the fabrication process for detectors with amorphous semiconductors is not as highly developed as for conventional technologies. The amorphous semiconductor layer properties can vary widely based on how they are created and these can translate into varying performance of HPGe detectors with these contacts. Some key challenges include minimizing charge injection leakage current, increasing the long-term stability of the contacts, and achieving good charge collection properties in segmented detectors.

A systematic study of contact characteristics is presented where amorphous germanium (a-Ge) and amorphous silicon (a-Si) contacts are sputtered with varying sputter gas hydrogen content, sputter gas pressure, and amorphous film thickness. A set of about 45 detectors fabricated from 11 different crystal samples were analyzed for electron barrier height and effective Richardson constant. Most of these detectors were subjected to as many as 10 temperature cycles over a period of up to several months in order to assess their long-term stability. Additionally, 6 double-sided strip detectors were fabricated with a-Ge and a-Si contacts in order to study their inter-electrode charge collection properties. An attempt is made to relate fabrication process parameters such as hydrogen content, sputter pressure, and film thickness to changes observed in detector performance and assess the level of reproducibility using the current methods.

Several important results and conclusions were found that enable more reliable and highly performing detectors with amorphous semiconductor contacts. Utilizing the new information should enable consistent production of finely segmented detectors with excellent energy resolution that can be operated reliably for a long period of time. The passivation process could impact planar detectors as well as other designs, such as the p-type point contact detector. It is demonstrated that the long-term stability of amorphous semiconductor contacts is primarily dependent on the time the detector is at room temperature rather than the number of temperature cycles. For a-Ge contacts, higher sputter pressure yields a more stable process that changes little with time, giving a reliable hole-blocking contact. The a-Si contacts form a good electron-blocking contact with decreasing leakage current over time. Both materials, when 7% hydrogen is included in the argon sputter gas, show acceptable levels of inter-electrode charge collection to be useful for strip electrode detectors.