Quality improvement of CdMnTe:In single crystals by an effective post-growth annealing

• An effective post-growth annealing method was used to improve the performance of CdMnTe:In crystals.
• The density of Te inclusions decreased notably.
• The resistivity increased even two orders of magnitude (from 109 to 1011 Ω cm).
• The optimal annealing conditions are a temperature of 1073 K and duration of 120 h.

In this paper, an effective annealing method in which CdMnTe:In (CMT:In) single crystals were coated with CMT powders of the same composition was used to improve the crystal quality of CMT:In crystals. The results indicated that the density of Te inclusions decreased as the annealing time increased. The resistivity and IR transmittance of annealed CMT:In crystals were enhanced obviously. The resistivity of 120 h annealed crystal increased even two orders of magnitude. The reduction of full-width at-half-maximum (FWHM) and the increase of the intensity of X-ray rocking curve indicated an improvement of the crystal quality. PL measurements also showed the crystal quality improved after annealing. No characteristic peak of 241Am γ-ray could be observed in the detector fabricated with as-grown crystal. Remarkably, for the detector fabricated with annealed crystals, the peak of 241Am γ-ray appeared. And the energy resolution and μτ value were improved as the annealing time increased. Specially, 120 h annealed CMT:In crystal with 10.11% energy resolution and 1.20×10−3 cm2/V μτ value has the best detector performance.