Cadmium Telluride X-ray pad detectors with different passivation dielectrics

Abstract

The suitability of two low-temperature dielectric passivation layer processes for the fabrication of Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) X-ray detectors has been investigated. The CdTe crystals with a size of (10 10 1) mm were coated with sputtered aluminum nitride (AlN) or with aluminum oxide (AlO) grown by the atomic layer deposition (ALD) method. The metallization contacts of the detectors were made by titanium tungsten (TiW) and gold (Au) metal sputtering depositions. The pad detector structures were patterned with proximity-contactless photolithography techniques followed by lift-off patterning of the electrodes. The detector properties were characterized at room temperature by Transient Current Technique (TCT) measurements. The obtained results were compared and verified by numerical TCAD simulations of the detector response. Our results indicate that higher signal charge was collected from samples with AlO. Furthermore, no significant laser light induced signal decay by CdTe material polarization was observed within order of 30 min of continuous illumination.