Radiation hardness studies of CdTe and for the SIXS particle detector on-board the BepiColombo spacecraft

Abstract We report of the radiation hardness measurements that were performed in the developing work of a particle detector on-board ESA's forthcoming BepiColombo spacecraft. Two different high- Z semiconductor compounds, cadmium telluride (CdTe) and mercuric iodide (HgI 2 ), were irradiated with 22 MeV protons in four steps to attain the estimated total dose of 10 12 p / cm 2 for the mission time. The performance of the detectors was studied before and after every irradiation with radioactive 55 Fe source Mn K α 5.9 keV emission line. We studied the impact of the proton beam exposure on detector leakage current, energy resolution and charge collection efficiency (CCE). Also the reconstruct…