We consider that semi-insulating (Cd,Mn)Te crystals may well successfully replace the commonly used (Cd,Zn)Te crystals as a material for manufacturing large-area X- and gamma-ray detectors. The Bridgman growth method yields good quality and high-resistivity (10{sup 9}-10{sup 10} {Omega}-cm) crystals of (Cd,Mn)Te:V. Doping with vanadium ({approx} 10{sup 16} cm{sup -3}), which acts as a compensating agent, and annealing in cadmium vapors, which reduces the number of cadmium vacancies in the as-grown crystal, ensure this high resistivity. Detector applications of the crystals require satisfactory electrical contacts. Hence, we explored techniques of ensuring good electrical contacts to semi-insulating (Cd,Mn)Te crystals. Our findings are reported here. Before depositing the contact layers, we prepared an 'epi-ready' surface of the crystal platelet by a procedure described earlier for various tellurium-based II-VI compound crystals. A molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) apparatus was used to deposit various types of contact layers: Monocrystalline semiconductor layers, amorphous- and nanocrystalline semiconductor layers, and metal layers were studied. We employed ZnTe heavily doped ({approx} 10{sup 18} cm{sup -3}) with Sb, and CdTe heavily doped ({approx} 10{sup 17} cm{sup -3}) with In as the semiconductors to create contact layers that subsequently enable good contact (with a narrow, tunneling barrier) to the Au layer that usually is applied as the top contact layer. We describe and discuss the technology and some properties of the electrical contacts to semi-insulating (Cd,Mn)Te
