Development Of X-Ray And Gamma-Ray Czt Detectors For Homeland Security Applications

Cadmium Zinc Telluride (CZT) continues to progress in quality and cost as a material for the detection of hard X-ray and gamma-ray photons with excellent spatial and energy resolutions. We are developing large-volume (0.5x3.9x3.9 cm(3)) cross-strip CZT detectors with the objective to combine the excellent performance achieved so far only with pixelated CZT detectors with a reduced number of readout channels. In this contribution, we discuss the spectroscopic performance of large volume CZT detectors from the company Orbotech when contacted as pixelated detectors. Subsequently, we present results obtained when the same substrates where contacted with cross-strip contacts. Finally, we use the results from a simulation study to discuss the optimization of the design of the strip contacts and the readout electronics.