RECENT PROGRESS IN LEAD IODIDE X-RAY SPECTROMETER DEVELOPMENT

Lead iodide shows great promise as an X-ray spectrometer material for use at room temperature and above. The pioneering work on lead iodide detectors was promising but resulted in detectors with poor energy resolution. Later, we discovered that by carefully preparing the starting materials, lead iodide detectors with good energy resolution ( < 1 keV FWHM at 5.9 keV) could be fabricated. We have continued to develop these detectors with significant progress being made in the areas of purification, crystal growth and device fabrication.