An imaging CdZnTe detector with coplanar orthogonal anode strips

Abstract

A novel electrode configuration for CZT imaging devices is presented. It is made of focusing, non-collecting anode strips, in one dimension, and collecting anode pixels, interconnected in rows, in the orthogonal dimension. The simulation of such an imaging detector is presented. First, field lines in the detector are computed that show that electrons generated in γ-ray events are collected on the pixels. Charge signals, induced on the pixel and on the strip by drifting electrons, are calculated for several points of interaction inside the detector unit cell. These show that this new detector should retain the spectroscopic and detection efficiency advantages of single carrier (electrons) charge sensing devices such as pixel detectors or spectrometers with controlling electrodes. Furthermore, it retains the main advantage of conventional strip detectors, i.e. an N x N array of imaging pixels realized with only 2N electronic channels. An additional potential advantage is the measurement of the third coordinate, i.e. the depth of interaction in the detector.