The high gamma-ray absorption efficiency and optimum band gap (1.57 eV) makes CdZnTe a near ideal material for room-temperature semiconductor detector applications. Continuous progress in the CdZnTe crystal growth and device fabrication technologies in the last ten years allowed the commercialization of this detector technology into a wide array of medical, industrial, scientific, security and safeguards applications. Increasing yields of the state-of-the-art crystal growth and device fabrication technologies continue to improve the availability and affordability of CdZnTe detectors. While premium-grade large-volume CdZnTe single crystals with superior spectroscopic performance are still relatively expensive, small-volume (< 0.5 cm³) high-quality CdZnTe detectors can now be mass-produced and are available at hundredth of a cost than few years ago. Advancement of the CdZnTe crystal growth technology holds the key to both the further performance improvements of CdZnTe detectors in advanced spectroscopic and spectroscopic imaging applications and the further commercialization of this technology to mainstream room-temperature x-ray and gamma-ray detection applications.
The high-pressure electro-dynamic gradient-freeze (HP-EDGF) crystal-growth technology pioneered by eV PRODUCTS improved the availability of premium grade large-volume semi-insulating CdZnTe crystals and significantly improved the manufacturing yields of CdZnTe detectors. In this contribution we review the properties and performance of CdZnTe crystals grown by the HP-EDGF method. We discuss the nature and effects of electrically active microscopic and structural defects on the charge-transport properties and performance of CdZnTe detectors. We also discuss some of the efforts aiming at further improvements of the CdZnTe crystal growth technology.

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