Silicon carbide (SiC) is a wide band-gap semiconductor material with many excellent properties, showing great potential in fusion neutron detection. The radiation resistance of 4H-SiC Schottky diode detectors was studied experimentally by carefully analyzing the detectors’ properties before and after deuterium-tritium fusion neutron irradiation with the total fluence of 1.31 × 1014 n/cm2 and 7.29 × 1014 n/cm2 at room temperature. Significant degradation has been observed after neutron irradiation: reverse current increased greatly, over three to thirty fold; Schottky junction was broken down; significant lattice damage was observed at low temperature photoluminescence measurements; the peaks of alpha particle response spectra shifted to lower channels and became wider; the charge collection efficiency (CCE) decreased by about 7.0% and 22.5% at 300 V with neutron irradiation fluence of 1.31 × 1014 n/cm2 and 7.29 × 1014 n/cm2, respectively. Although the degradation exists, the SiC detectors successfully survive intense neutron radiation and show better radiation resistance than silicon detectors.

The detection of ionizing radiation such as X-ray, γ-ray, α-particle, and neutrons has been widely required in medical and industrial areas. Perovskite semiconductor detectors are arousing widespread interest and achieving significant progresses in this area. Unique material strengths, such as large attenuation coefficient, defect tolerant nature, balanced carrier mobilities, and feasible preparation techniques, make perovskite semiconductor detector a strong competitor to existing commercial products. Inspired by the booming development of this area, we review the current achievements of ionizing radiation detection with perovskite semiconductors. Firstly, a comprehensive summary of the device preparation techniques is provided, followed by a profound discussion of the detector physics. Then, the broad applications of perovskite semiconductor detectors are illustrated. Finally, we give an outlook of the current challenges pending to be tackled for commercialized applications. We believe the perovskite semiconductor detectors will be new blood to the current ionizing radiation detection market.

particles directly determines the performance of time resolution, response rate, and counting ability of radiation detectors. For example, dynamic high speed X-ray imaging requires frame rates of 2 ns (GHz) and thus the scintillator with sub-nanosecond response is in urgent demand. [3] Sub-nanosecond scintillator is also highly needed in PET detector module to increase the accidental coincidence rate, without image reconstruction to approaching the recognized goals of 10 ps time resolution. [2,7,8] Some nuclear physics experiments with very high count rates required sub-nanosecond scintillation to avoid signal piling up. [9] BaF 2 , CsCl, and ZnO:Ga scintillators have demonstrated sub-nanosecond response speed, with the short lifetime as 0.8, 0.9, and 0.7 ns, respectively. [10,11] However, BaF 2 and CsCl suffered from longstanding weakness of extra-low light yield (<1500 photons MeV −1 ) due to the inefficient core-valence transitions and also an undesirable slow lifetime component (few microseconds). [10] Besides the low light yield, ZnO: Ga scintillator was also limited by the manufacturing difficulty in bulk crystal and high production cost. [11,12] Therefore, new sub-nanosecond scintillator materials with considerable light yield urgently need to be explored. Perovskite materials have emerged as a new family of radiation scintillators with tunable wavelength andPerovskite materials have demonstrated great potential for ultrafast scintillators with high light yield. However, the decay time of perovskite still cannot be further minimized into sub-nanosecond region, while sub-nanosecond scintillators are highly demanded in various radiation detection, including high speed X-ray imaging, time-of-flight based tomography or particle discrimination, and timing resolution measurement in synchrotron radiation facilities, etc. Here, a rational design strategy is showed to shorten the scintillation decay time, by maximizing the dielectric difference between organic amines and Pb-Br octahedral emitters in 2D organic-inorganic hybrid perovskites (OIHP). Benzimidazole (BM) with low dielectric constant inserted between [PbBr 6 ] 2− layers, resulting in a surprisingly large exciton binding energy (360.3 ± 4.8 meV) of 2D OIHP BM 2 PbBr 4 . The emitting decay time is shortened as 0.97 ns, which is smallest among all the perovskite materials. Moreover, the light yield is 3190 photons MeV −1 , which is greatly higher than conventional ultrafast scintillator BaF 2 (1500 photons MeV −1 ). The rare combination of ultrafast decay time and considerable light yield renders BM 2 PbBr 4 excellent performance in γ-ray, neutron, α-particle detection, and the best theoretical coincidence time resolution of 65.1 ps, which is only half of the reference sample LYSO (141.3 ps).

Sensitive and fast detection of neutrons and gamma rays is vital for homeland security, high‐energy physics, and proton therapy. Fast‐neutron detectors rely on light organic scintillators, and γ‐ray detectors use heavy inorganic scintillators and semiconductors. Efficient mixed‐field detection using a single material is highly challenging due to their contradictory requirements. Here we report hybrid perovskites (C8H12N)2Pb(Br1−xClx)4 that combine light organic cations and heavy inorganic skeletons at a molecular level to achieve unprecedented performance for mixed‐field radiation detection. High neutron absorption due to a high density of hydrogen, strong radiative recombination within the highly confined [PbX6]4− layer, and sub‐nanometer distance between absorption sites and radiative centers, enable a light yield of 41 000 photons/MeV, detection pulse width of 2.97 ns and extraordinary linearity response toward both fast neutrons and γ‐rays, outperforming commonly used fast‐neutron scintillators. Neutron energy spectrum, time‐of‐flight based fast‐neutron/γ‐ray discrimination and neutron yield monitoring were all successfully achieved using (C8H12N)2Pb(Br0.95Cl0.05)4 detectors. We further demonstrate the monitoring of reaction kinetics and total power of a nuclear fusion reaction. We envision that molecular hybridized scintillators open a new avenue for mixed‐field radiation detection and imaging.

Sensitive and fast detection of neutrons and gamma rays is vital for homeland security, high‐energy physics and proton therapy. However, efficient mixed‐field detection using a single material is highly challenging because fast‐neutron detectors rely on light organic scintillators, and γ‐ray detectors use heavy inorganic scintillators and semiconductors. In the cover, the authors (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/inf2.12325) illustrate organic‐inorganic hybrid perovskites that combine light organic cations and heavy inorganic skeletons at a molecular level to achieve unprecedented performance for mixed‐field radiation detection, so as to obtain the time information and energy information of the nuclear reaction process accurately.