Impact of Surface Treatment on the Structural and Electronic Properties of Polished CdZnTe Surfaces for Radiation Detectors

We present the effects of surface treatments on the structural and electronic properties of chemomechanically polished Cd0.9Zn0.1Te before contact deposition. Specifically, polished CdZnTe (CZT) samples were treated with four distinct chemical etchants: (1) bromine methanol (BM), (2) bromine in lactic acid, (3) bromine in methanol followed by bromine-20% lactic acid in ethylene glycol, and (4) hydrochloric acid (HCl). The surface structure and surface electronic properties were studied with atomic force microscopy (AFM) and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). AFM images showed that three of the four etchants significantly altered the surface morphology and structure of CZT. All etchants created smoother surfaces; however, all except HCl also introduced high densities of defects. HCl was found to not affect the surface structure. XPS measurements indicated that a thick, similar to 3 nm to 4 nm, TeO2 layer formed about 1 h after etching; hence, it is very important to process devices immediately after etching to prevent oxide formation.