TY - JOUR
T1 - An effective method for thallium bromide purification and research on crystal properties
AU - Zheng, Zhiping
AU - Meng, Fang
AU - Gong, Shuping
AU - Quan, Lin
AU - Wang, Jing
AU - Zhou, Dongxiang
PY - 2012/6/1
Y1 - 2012/6/1
N2 - Thallium bromide (TlBr) is a promising candidate for room-temperature X- and gamma-ray detectors in view of its excellent intrinsic features. However, material purity and crystal quality concerns still limit the use of TlBr crystals as detectors. In this work, a combination of hydrothermal recrystallization (HR) and vacuum distillation (VD) methods were applied to purify TlBr salts prior to crystal growth. Trace impurities at the ppb/ppm level were determined by inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS). The results showed that the impurity concentrations of the TlBr salt decreased significantly after HR and VD purification, and high performance of the resultant TlBr crystal in areas such as electrical and optical properties was achieved. The combination of HR and VD methods could fabricate purer material, with an order of magnitude higher resistivity and better optical quality, than HR or VD method used separately. The possible technological considerations affecting the parameters of the crystals are investigated.
AB - Thallium bromide (TlBr) is a promising candidate for room-temperature X- and gamma-ray detectors in view of its excellent intrinsic features. However, material purity and crystal quality concerns still limit the use of TlBr crystals as detectors. In this work, a combination of hydrothermal recrystallization (HR) and vacuum distillation (VD) methods were applied to purify TlBr salts prior to crystal growth. Trace impurities at the ppb/ppm level were determined by inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS). The results showed that the impurity concentrations of the TlBr salt decreased significantly after HR and VD purification, and high performance of the resultant TlBr crystal in areas such as electrical and optical properties was achieved. The combination of HR and VD methods could fabricate purer material, with an order of magnitude higher resistivity and better optical quality, than HR or VD method used separately. The possible technological considerations affecting the parameters of the crystals are investigated.
KW - Crystal growth
KW - Crystal quality
KW - Hydrothermal recrystallization
KW - Thallium bromide
KW - Trace element analysis
KW - Vacuum distillation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84862809746&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.nima.2011.11.094
DO - 10.1016/j.nima.2011.11.094
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84862809746
SN - 0168-9002
VL - 676
SP - 26
EP - 31
JO - Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment
JF - Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment
ER -