High-Performance Oxide Crystal BaTeW2O9 X-ray Detector with High Stability, Low Detection Limit, and Ultralow Dark Current Drift

X-ray detection materials and devices have received widespread attention due to their irreplaceable role in the medical, industrial, and military fields. In this paper, BaTeW2O9 (BTW) crystal containing lone pairs of electrons with large atomic numbers and high density is reported as a new type of oxide crystal X-ray detection material. The anisotropic X-ray detection performance of the BTW single crystal (SC) is systematically studied. At 120 keV hard X-ray photon energy, the BTW SC X-ray detectors along the crystallographic a-, b-, and c-axes directions achieved high sensitivities of 371, 404, and 368 μC Gyair-1 cm-2 respectively. More importantly, no dark current drift phenomenon was observed in the BTW SC X-ray detectors. The dark current drifts along the crystallographic a-, b-, and c-axes directions are as low as 7.81 × 10-9, 8.61 × 10-9, and 7.71 × 10-9 nA cm-1 s-1 V-1, respectively. In addition, the BTW SC X-ray detector has an ultralow detection limit of 21.9 nGyair s-1. Our research provides a new X-ray detection material with potential application value and a new material design strategy for the field of radiation detection.