Radial and axial impurity distribution in high-purity germanium crystals

To grow high purity germanium (HPGe) crystals in an underground environment for ultra-low background experiments is being studied. In the present work, HPGe crystals along 〈100〉 direction have been grown by the Czochralski method. In order to investigate the distribution of the impurities as a function of length for a grown crystal, i.e. the axial direction, we fabricated a system to measure the resistivity along the axial direction at both room temperature and liquid nitrogen temperature. The distribution of the impurities along the radial direction was measured with a Hall Effect System. The results show that the carrier concentration in some crystals grown in a hydrogen atmosphere has an impurity level of about 1010/cm3, which meets the requirements of detector-grade crystals.

► 〈100〉 HPGe crystals were grown in hydrogen or argon atmosphere.
► Impurity distribution along the radial direction of crystals was investigated.
► Impurity distribution along length direction was also investigated too.
► Relevant physical phenomenon was analyzed.