The Effects of Operating Temperature on the Behaviour of Semiconductor Detectors

The similarity in behaviour shown by lithium-drifted germanium and silicon detectors in recent detailed studies of their spectrometer performance over a wide temperature range1-3 suggested a comparison with the effects of temperature on the operation of other types of semiconductor detector. In this paper, a summary of the data published in the literature on temperature effects in compensated (p-i-n) and non-compensated (p-n) detectors is presented. Conditions for optimum spectrometer performance and limits to operating temperature are discussed, from experimental results and theoretical considerations.