Affiliation: | 1. Institute–Materials for Electronics and Energy Technology (i-MEET), Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Friedrich-Alexander-Universitat Erlangen-Nürnberg, Energy Campus Nürnberg, Fürtherstraße 250, 90429 Nürnberg, Germany;2. Institute–Materials for Electronics and Energy Technology (i-MEET), Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Friedrich-Alexander-Universitat Erlangen-Nürnberg, Energy Campus Nürnberg, Fürtherstraße 250, 90429 Nürnberg, Germany Siemens HealthineersAG, Technology Excellence, Guenther-Scharowsky-Strasse 1, 91058 Erlangen, Germany;3. Institute for Crystallography and Structural Physics ICPS, Physics Department, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Staudtstrasse 3, 91058 Erlangen, Germany;4. Organic Materials and Devices (OMD), Institute of Polymer Material, Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für Nanostrukturierte Filme (IZNF), Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Cauerstraße 3, 91058 Erlangen, Germany;5. Institute–Materials for Electronics and Energy Technology, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Martensstraße 7, 91058 Erlangen, Germany;6. Institute–Materials for Electronics and Energy Technology, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Martensstraße 7, 91058 Erlangen, Germany Helmholtz-Institut Erlangen-Nürnberg, Immerwahrstraße 2, 91058 Erlangen, Germany;7. Siemens HealthineersAG, Technology Excellence, Guenther-Scharowsky-Strasse 1, 91058 Erlangen, Germany |
Abstract: | Self-healing of defects imposed by external stimuli such as high energy radiation is a possibility to sustain the operational lifetime of electronic devices such as radiation detectors. Cs3Bi2Br3I6 polycrystalline wafers are introduced here as novel X-ray detector material, which not only guarantees a high X-ray stopping power due to its composition with elements with high atomic numbers, but also outperforms other Bi-based semiconductors in respect to detector parameters such as detection limit, transient behavior, or dark current. The polycrystalline wafers represent a size scalable technology suitable for future integration in imager devices for medical applications. Most astonishingly, aging of these wafer-based devices results in an overall improvement of the detector performance—dark currents are reduced, photocurrents are increased, and one of the most problematic properties of X-ray detectors, the base line drift is reduced by orders of magnitude. These aging induced improvements indicate self-healing effects which are shown to result from recrystallization. Optimized synthetic conditions also improve the as prepared X-ray detectors; however, the aged device outperforms all others. Thus, self-healing acts in Cs3Bi2Br3I6 as an optimization tool, which is certainly not restricted to this single compound, it is expected to be beneficial also for many further polycrystalline ionic semiconductors. |