Gravity can affect the physical vapor growth of mercuric iodide in two distinct ways. First, gravity will induce convection during growth, which strongly mixes residual impurities and any elementary gases resulting from imperfect stoichiometry, either of which can then form precipitates in the growing crystal. Second, gravity loads the resulting crystal, which is particularly soft while still hot, especially in the absence of precipitates. We have investigated the effects of these processes on the resulting crystalline regularity and the effects of various types of irregularity, in turn, on performance.

High resolution synchrotron x-radiation diffraction imaging of three generations of crystals, grown both in microgravity and in full gravity, provide graphic evidence of the influence of gravity on mercuric iodide crystal growth. These images tie together the results of other characterization studies, identifying the crystallographic sources of the observed property enhancement in microgravity. The first process, convection, is found to be particularly important, both in its influence on observed crystalline regularity and in the resulting electronic performance of detectors made from these crystals.

As a result of these investigations, the crystalline regularity and performance of terrestrial crystals has been substantially improved, although the resulting crystals have not yet achieved parity with the performance of crystals grown in microgravity. We propose new experiments in microgravity for property optimization.