arXiv subjects

Narayan Budhathoki

Publications and source records attributed to Narayan Budhathoki.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Temperature-Dependent Charge Transport in USD-Grown High-Purity Germanium: Interplay Between Freeze-Out and Multi-Scattering Mechanisms

We report temperature-dependent charge transport measurements in p-type high-resistivity germanium crystals grown at the University of South Dakota. Hall-effect and four-probe resistivity measurements were performed on five planar samples over the temperature range of 2-300 K. The apparent Hall mobility exceeds 10$^6$ cm$^2$ V$^{-1}$ s${^-1}$ at cryogenic temperatures and decreases systematically with increasing temperature, while the effective Hall carrier concentration exhibits strong carrier freeze-out behavior at low temperatures. The combined evolution of Hall mobility, effective Hall carrier concentration, and resistivity reveals distinct transport regimes associated with carrier freeze-out, extrinsic conduction, and phonon-limited scattering. The transport behavior is interpreted using a Matthiessens-rule-inspired phenomenological mobility model motivated by the combined influence of ionized impurity, neutral impurity, and acoustic phonon scattering. Variations among samples are correlated with differences in effective Hall carrier concentration and transport behavior. These measurements establish a transport baseline for USD-grown high-resistivity germanium crystals and provide guidance for future material optimization toward detector-grade high-purity germanium for low-background rare-event detector applications.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2026

Internal Charge Amplification in Germanium at 77K and 4K: From Single-Free-Flight Bounds to a Physics-Informed Ionization Model

Internal charge amplification (ICA) in cryogenic high-purity germanium (HPGe) can lower detection thresholds by providing gain inside the detector crystal, but reliable operation requires a predictive estimate of the avalanche-onset \emph{critical electric field} $E_{\mathrm{crit}}$. We present a compact framework for $E_{\mathrm{crit}}$ at 77~K and 4~K (typical HPGe operating temperatures) that bridges (i) a mobility-based single-free-flight (SFF) upper bound with (ii) a physics-informed impact-ionization model incorporating energy-dependent scattering, nonparabolic (Kane) dispersion, intervalley transfer, and the high-energy ``lucky-drift'' tail. This unified treatment yields closed-form, design-useful relations, including $E_{\mathrm{crit}}^{(\mathrm{PI})}=B(T)/\ln[A(T)d]$, and a practical calibration workflow that maps measured low-field mobility $\mu(T)$ and gain curves $M(V)$ (Chynoweth analysis) to device-level bias targets with propagated uncertainty bands. Example electron and hole estimates indicate that realistic transport typically lowers $E_{\mathrm{crit}}$ relative to SFF and increases the predicted change in $E_{\mathrm{crit}}$ between 77~K and 4~K. The resulting portable formulas connect materials/transport inputs to geometry, excess noise, and field shaping, providing design-ready guidance for stable, unipolar-favored ICA with controlled quenching in Ge and other cryogenic semiconductors.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2026

Machine-Learning Optimization of Detector-Grade Yield in High-Purity Germanium Crystal Growth

High-purity germanium (HPGe) crystals underpin some of the most sensitive detectors used in fundamental physics and other high-resolution radiation-sensing applications. Despite their importance, the supply of detector-grade HPGe remains limited because achieving high yield in Czochralski growth (CZ) depends on tightly coupled, nonlinear processes, impurity incorporation, thermal gradients, and dynamic control settings that are largely mastered by only a handful of companies with decades of experience. Here we present a data-driven prediction framework based on a Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (BiLSTM) neural network with multi-head attention, trained on time-resolved growth parameters (e.g., heater power, pull rate, and impurity indicators) from 48 independent crystal runs. The model predicts the final detector-grade fraction for each growth and, using SHAP feature-importance analysis, identifies impurity concentration and growth rate as the dominant factors governing yield, consistent with empirical understanding. By providing a quantitative, interpretable link between in-process signals and post-growth detector quality, this framework offers a practical path toward improving yield, reducing dependence on trial-and-error tuning, and scaling HPGe production for next-generation rare-event detectors.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2025

Depletion-limited Effective Hall mobility in Micrometer-Scale High-Purity Germanium Crystals

Electrostatic effects can strongly constrain charge transport in thinned high-purity germanium (HPGe), with direct implications for radiation detectors and Ge-based electronic and quantum devices. We report a systematic experimental characterization of the thickness-dependent effective Hall mobility in bulk-grown, detector-grade HPGe at room temperature using Hall-effect measurements on n- and p-type samples sequentially thinned from 2.7~mm to 7~\textmu m. The intrinsic bulk carrier mobility remains thickness independent in this regime; the observed reduction in Hall-extracted mobility arises from electrostatic surface depletion that reduces the electrically active conducting thickness. The thickness-dependent data are accurately parameterized by an empirical extended-exponential relation, $\mu(t)=\mu_{0}[1-\exp(-(t/\tau)^{\beta})]$, where $\tau$ is a characteristic electrostatic length scale. Comparison with boundary-scattering and depletion-based models shows that Fuchs--Sondheimer scattering is negligible, while electrostatic depletion dominates the transport behavior. The hierarchy $\lambda_{D}<\tau\lesssim W_{0}$ directly links the apparent mobility reduction to long-range screening and near-surface electric fields. These results yield a simple design guideline: maintaining thicknesses $t\gtrsim 3\tau$ preserves near-bulk transport, whereas thinner structures operate in a depletion-controlled regime with strongly reduced effective conductivity.

physics.app-ph↗