Study of Radioactive Impurities in Neutron Transmutation Doped Germanium

TL;DR

This study investigates radioactive impurities in neutron transmutation doped germanium used for low-temperature sensors, identifying impurity levels and suggesting a cooling period to reduce background noise for rare event detection.

Contribution

It provides detailed spectroscopic analysis of impurities in irradiated Ge and proposes methods to reduce contamination for sensitive cryogenic applications.

Findings

Impurities like $^{65}$Zn, $^{110}$Ag, and $^{182}$Ta are introduced during irradiation.

Chemical etching can significantly reduce surface impurities.

A cooling period of about 2 years is needed to lower radioactive background to acceptable levels.

Abstract

A program to develop low temperature (mK) sensors with neutron transmutation doped Ge for rare event studies with a cryogenic bolometer has been initiated. For this purpose, semiconductor grade Ge wafers are irradiated with thermal neutron flux from Dhruva reactor at BARC, Mumbai. Spectroscopic studies of irradiated samples have revealed that the environment of the capsule used for irradiating the sample leads to significant levels of $^{65}$Zn, $^{110}$Ag and $^{182}$Ta impurities, which can be reduced by chemical etching of approximately $\sim50 \mu$m thick surface layer. From measurements of the etched samples in the low background counting setup, activity due to trace impurities of $^{123}$Sb in bulk Ge is estimated to be $\sim$ 1 Bq/gm after irradiation. These estimates indicate that in order to use the NTD Ge sensors for rare event studies, a cool down period of $\sim$ 2 years would be necessary to reduce the radioactive background to $\le$ 1 mBq/gm.