This symposium will provide a venue for the presentation of the latest results and discussion of radiation detection materials from both experimental and theoretical standpoints. As advances are made in this area of materials, additional experimental and theoretical approaches are used to both guide the growth of materials and to characterize the materials that have a wide array of applications for detecting different types of radiation. The types of detector materials for semiconductors and scintillators include a variety of molecular compounds such as lanthanum halides, zinc oxide, lead iodide, cadmium telluride, mercuric iodide, thallium bromide, as well as others, such as cadmium zinc telluride.
An additional class of scintillators includes those based on organic compounds and glasses. Ideally, desired materials used for radiation detection have attributes such as appropriate-range bandgaps, high atomic numbers of the central element, high densities, performance at room temperature, and strong mechanical properties, and are low cost in terms of their production. There are significant gaps in the knowledge related to these materials that are very important in making radiation detector materials that are higher quality in terms of their reproducible purity, homogeneity, and mechanical integrity. The topics that are the focal point of this symposium address these issues so that much better detectors may be made in the future.
