Advances in CdMnTe Nuclear Radiation Detectors Development

Cadmium manganese telluride (CdMnTe) is one of the tertiary compounds of cadmium telluride (CdTe) that has shown great promise in the detection of X-rays and gamma-rays at room temperature without cryogenic cooling. While cadmium zinc telluride (CdZnTe) wide band gap semiconductor has been widely researched and developed to high resolution detector, CdMnTe has comparatively received less effort in development. It is however expected that a more homogeneous CdMnTe crystal with lesser defects than CdZnTe will be easier to grow since the segregation coefficient of Mn in CdTe is closer to unity than that of Zn. This paper briefly reviews the material properties and growth techniques for CdMnTe and presents progress in the development of CdMnTe detectors. Three successive Bridgman growths of CdMnTe resulted in detector grade crystals.