Characterization of Crystal Properties and Defects in CdZnTe Radiation Detectors

CdZnTe-based detectors are highly valued because of their high spectral resolution, which is an essential feature for nuclear medical imaging. However, this resolution is compromised when there are substantial defects in the CdZnTe crystals. In this study, we present a learning-based approach to determine the spatially dependent bulk properties and defects in semiconductor detectors. This characterization allows us to mitigate and compensate for the undesired effects caused by crystal impurities. We tested our model with computer-generated noise-free input data, where it showed excellent accuracy, achieving an average RMSE of 0.43% between the predicted and the ground truth crystal properties. In addition, a sensitivity analysis was performed to determine the effect of noisy data on the accuracy of the model.. Authors: Ballester, Manuel [Northwestern University, Evanston, IL (United States)] (ORCID:0000000191356421); Kaspar, Jaromir [Siemens Medical Solutions USA Inc., Chicago, IL (United States)]; Massanés, Francesc [Siemens Medical Solutions USA Inc., Chicago, IL (United States)]; Banerjee, Srutarshi [Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)]; Vija, Alexander Hans [Siemens Medical Solutions USA Inc., Chicago, IL (United States)] (ORCID:0000000255627922). DOE Contract: AC02-06CH11357. Subjects: 46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY; CdZnTe crystals; learning-based characterization; photon-counting detector simulation