Growth, optical and scintillation properties of Gd³⁺ doped Bi₄Si₃O₁₂ single crystals

Abstract

Pure Bi4Si3O12(BSO) and Bi4Si3O12:Gd (BSO:Gd) crystals with nominal concentrate of 1.0–6.0 mol% Gd2O3 were grown by the modified vertical Bridgman method. The X-ray powder diffraction, transmission and fluorescence spectra have been investigated on BSO:Gd crystals. Scintillation properties of Gd3+ doped Bi4Si3O12 single crystals have been investigated. Doped with small amount of Gd2O3(1.0–6.0 mol%), the relative light yield and energy resolution of BSO crystals were improved significantly. The experimental data indicates that the sensitization effect of a small amount of Gd3+ doping enables the intrinsic defects reduce, and improve the light yield and a large amount of Gd3+ doping can cause the new crystal field distortion and further affect the intrinsic luminescence of Bi3+. These results indicate that BSO:Gd crystals could be one of the promising candidates for replacing BGO in some applications such as electromagnetic calorimeter and dual readout in nuclear or high energy physics.

Visible–Near Infrared Scintillation Properties of Er-Doped Bi4Si3O12 Single Crystals

“…23 Thus, many researchers including our group have conducted the investigation about the scintillation properties of non-doped or rare Earth (e.g., Ce 3+ , Nd 3+ , Dy 3+ , Sm 3+ , and Tb 3+ ) -doped BSO. [24][25][26][27] In this study, we focused on Er 3+ ion as a luminescence center. Er 3+ ion has the main emission peak at 1520 nm which is located at the lowest transmittance loss region in glass fiber.…”