X-ray Induced Effects on Photocurrents in Amorphous Se Films

Amorphous selenium (a-Se) is one of the X-ray photoconductors that is available for use in recently developed direct conversion flat panel X-ray image detectors for medical imaging. To obtain a better understanding of trapping and recombination effects in a-Se, we have studied light and X-ray induced photocurrents in a-Se films. The residual photocurrent, after X-ray exposure, decreases in sandwich cells whereas it increases in coplanar cells. These effects are recovered over a time scale of hours. We show that the results can be interpreted by using valence alternation pair (VAP) type charged defects.