Effects of H₂ atmosphere annealing on the properties of CZT:In single crystals

To improve crystal quality and detector performance, high-resistivity cadmium zinc telluride (CZT):In single crystals were annealed in H₂. The concentration of Te inclusions did not change after annealing. Both the resistivity and infrared transmittance increased as the annealing time increased, indicating improvement of crystal quality. Because of the passivation by hydrogen, some interesting phenomena were observed in the photoluminescence spectra of as-grown and annealed CZT:In crystals. Moreover, the energy resolution was remarkably enhanced. After 4 h, 8 h, and 12 h of annealing, the energy resolution was improved 33%, 79%, and 49%, respectively. The crystal annealed for 8 h with energy resolution of 9.29% had the best detector performance.