Characterization of CZT detectors for particle detection studies

Cadmium Zinc Telluride (CZT) is a room temperature solid-state semiconductor material predominantly used in X-ray detection. Due to trapping effects, CZT is difficult to use as a particle detector. This research aims to characterize individual CZT detectors to be used in at a beam facility to study the effects of charge trapping on particle detection. The trapping characteristics are analyzed against beam line performance. Methods of characterization will be presented with how they relate to preliminary proton beam results. Specifically, this presentation will focus on the investigation of alpha source tests used to produce Hecht curves and the analysis to extract the mobility lifetime product (µt), and how it informs proton beam results.