Yinnel Tech, Inc.
3702 West Sample Street
South Bend , IN 46619

Dr. Longxia Li
(574) 234-3488
longxia@yinnel.com

Project Title:              Development of Large Size and Low Cost Cadmium Zinc Telluride Single Crystals for Improved Room Temperature Radiation Detectors used for National Security

SBIR I.D.:                  DE-FG02-00ER83129

 Technology

Developed an improving technique (MVB) to achieve large size cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) single crystals (50-100 times larger than conventional ones) with excellent radiation detector performances. This achievement enables Yinnel receiving R&D 100 award (so called Nobel Price of Applied Research) in 2001.  

Benefits

The new technique has been ready for large-scale manufacture of large-size and low-cost CZT crystals, which will bring the possibilities of wide uses in the national security and nuclear medicine imaging. 

 Applications

 There is a wide range of applications for which cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) based spectrometers and cameras are well suited.  Many of these applications are greatly enhanced or even made possible by reductions in the cost of detectors or enlarged size of the detectors.

Utilization of the excellent energy-resolving capability and compact size of detectors has allowed for the development of new instruments for measuring radiation.  Numerous industrial, scientific, environmental cleanup, medical, and national security applications exist for this enabling technology.  Some of the most pervasive are imaging systems for detection and localization of tumors and other abnormalities in the body, hand-held instruments to reduce the trafficking of nuclear materials, and portable field instruments for environmental monitoring and remediation activities.  These applications are listed below:

• Spectrometers and Imagers for Cleanup of Radioactive and Mixed Waste
• Imaging of Gamma-Ray Bursts from Space
• Tumor Localization
• Diagnosis of Heart Disease
• Safeguarding of Nuclear Materials and Weapons - Yinnel Tech is the only company who can supply the large-size detector grade crystals (volume greater than 6 inch cubic, 100 times larger than conventional ones) for using on this application;

Figure 1.  A typical 3” CZT (Zn=10%) single crystal grown at Yinnel which can be fabricated to radiation detectors

Figure 2.  Coplanar Detector produced from Yinnel Tech’s CZT

 Benefit to the Company

 With the funding from DOE SBIR program, Yinnel is able demonstrate higher single crystal yields and larger volume single crystals by using new growth technique.  Yinnel also developed a reliable procedure for producing high quality CZT crystals at manufacturing scale.  Yinnel also conducted systematic characterization to optimize the performance of the radiation detectors.