Long-term stability of 1-cm thick pixelated HgI/sub 2/ gamma-ray spectrometers operating at room temperature

Thick mercuric iodide (HgI/sub 2/) detectors are being investigated as potential room temperature gamma-ray spectrometers. This paper presents an investigation of the polarization effects and long-term spectral stability of pixelated HgI/sub 2/. Pixelated HgI/sub 2/ detectors have shown good stability over several months of measurements. After the first four days, the photopeak position and resolution have remained relatively constant. Current pixelated HgI/sub 2/ detectors may not suffer from polarization effects that once severely limited past planar HgI/sub 2/ devices, and can have good energy resolution (approximately 2% for a Cs-137 source) while using a modest electric field (/spl sim/2500 V/cm) and a relatively short shaping time (8 /spl mu/s).