A STUDY OF TEMPERATURE-DEPENDENCE OF SOME RELEVANT PARAMETERS PERFORMED ON A SET OF CDTE DETECTORS

Cadmium telluride is a semiconductor material which is now widely used in both spectroscopic and imaging applications. Among its properties, the most advantageous is its ability to operate at room-temperature, so as to avoid the need of bulk cooling devices. Nevertheless, a quant itative evaluation of the temperature dependence of the detectors resp onse is needed in order to establish a temperature range for safe oper ations. In this paper, some parameters are evaluated at temperatures r anging from -35 degrees C up to 40 degrees C with an energy source of 511 keV for a set of three spectroscopy grade CdTe detectors. The data obtained seem to indicate a significant temperature independence belo w 0 degrees C, while at temperatures over 10 degrees C spectra degrada tions occur.