Wide Band Gap Scintillation Materials: Progress in the Technology and Material Understanding

Abstract

Luminescence and scintillation characteristics of four selected material systems, namely CsI : Tl(Na), CeF 3 , PbWO 4 and Ce-doped aluminium perovskites XAlO 3 : Ce (XY, Lu, Y±Lu) are reviewed. The progress in their physical understanding and related optimisation of their characteristics and technology are demonstrated. The important role of various defect states in the scintillator performance of these materials is stressed, which has led to the need for a deeper study of the processes of energy transfer and storage to achieve their intrinsic limits and full exploitation in scintillation detectors.

Narrow Energy Gap between Triplet and Singlet Excited States of Sn2+ in Borate Glass

“…Nowadays, various types of rare earth (RE)-doped phosphors are being actively developed worldwide for applications in light emitting diodes (LEDs)1, displays2, scintillators3, persistent luminescence4, and solid-state laser materials5. For example, phosphors for white LEDs have been enthusiastically examined678.…”

Scintillation characteristics of PrF3:Ce single crystal

“…Among others, scintillation characteristics of Ce‐doped LiRF 4 2, BaR 2 F 8 (R = Y, Lu) 3, LiBaF 3 4 and LiCaAlF 6 5 were reported. The most systematically investigated fluoride scintillator was CeF 3 , for review see 6, 7, due to its planned (but not realized) usage in high energy physics calorimetric detectors in the nineties. In CeF 3 , its lower‐than‐expected scintillation efficiency was explained by the essentially nonradiative recombination of the captured hole at the Ce cation (i.e.…”

“…Ce 4+ ) with an electron from the conduction band, which limits scintillation light production to the impact‐excited Ce 3+ ions by hot electrons of 5–15 eV energy 8, 9. Furthermore, another nonradiative loss was recognized due to interactions of two nearby lying excited Ce 3+ ions in the dense ionisation track in the material 6 and the related decrease of the scintillation efficiency by a factor 2 was calculated 10.…”

Scintillation properties of lead tungstate crystals doped with the monovalent ion lithium

“…As a new optical material, PbWO 4 (PWO) has some specialties, e.g. rather low cost, short radiation length, high irradiative hardness, high density, fast decay time, and chemical stability 1. However, the relative low light yield (LY), which is 30 times lower than that of Bi 4 Ge 3 O 12 , intensively obstructs it for other applications, which require a higher LY.…”