Crystal Growth of the Perovskite Semiconductor CsPbBr3: A New Material for High-Energy Radiation Detection

The synthesis, crystal growth, and structural and optoelectronic characterization has been carried out for the perovsldte compound CsPbBr3. This compound is a direct band gap semiconductor which meets most of the requirements for successful detection of X- and gamma-ray radiation, such as high attenuation, high resistivity, and significant photoconductivity response, with detector resolution comparable to that of commercial, state-of-the-art materials. A structural phase transition which occurs during crystal growth at higher temperature does not seem to affect its crystal quality. Its mu tau product for both hole and electron carriers is approximately equal. The mu tau product for electrons is comparable to cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) and that for holes is 10 times higher than CZT.