Electrical, optical and structural properties of lead iodide

Lead iodide PbI₂ is an excellent and interesting candidate for high efficiency room temperature detectors working in the medium energy range of 1 keV–1 MeV. It can be widely applied in medicine, monitoring ecology, nondestructive defectoscopy and X-ray and gamma spectroscopy. The peculiarities of this material are high resistivity, ability to work in a wide range of temperatures and high chemical stability. The method of preparation was direct synthesis from lead and iodine. The material was further purified by zone melting and grown by Bridgman-Stockbarger method. In this work we have concentrated on the study of the influence of dopants such as lanthanides (Er,Gd, Ho, Tb, Tm, Yb, GdI₃, HoI₃, GdI₃) and elements of other groups, such as Au, Ag, Ge on the physical, electrical and optical properties of the PbI₂. These were evaluated by resistivity and low temperature photoluminescence measurements. The Synchrotron X-ray topography was successfully introduced to study defects. The quality of the material was analyzed after synthesis, zone melting and growth. The dependence on the concentration of dopants was investigated too.