Photoluminescence investigations of defects introduced during processing of mercuric iodide nuclear detectors

Abstract Low-temperature photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy was performed on a variety of HgI 2 samples to determine the effects of chemical etching with Kl and HNO 3 solutions and the modifications in the PL spectra due to the presence of carbon, chromium and parylene films. These investigations reveal that the processing steps used to manufacture HgI 2 nuclear detectors can lead to the incorporation of new defects into the near-surface region of the crystals. Moreover, correlations between the photoluminescence spectra and detector performance show that some of these defects are undesirable for producing high-quality devices.