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We report the photon (PL), electron (CL) and X-ray (XEL) induced luminescence characteristics of high aspect ratio ultra-long (~ 50 µm) ZnO nanorods (NRs) and discuss the potential for fast X-ray detection based on the consistent and efficient visible emission (~ 580 nm) from ZnO NRs. Nanostructured ZnO scintillators were rearranged to form a vertically well-aligned NR design in order to help light absorption and coupling resulting in luminescent and fast scintillation properties. The design of the nanorod array combines the key advantages of a low-cost growth technique together with environmentally friendly and widely available materials. A low temperature hydrothermal method was adopted to grow ZnO NRs in one cycle growth and their structural, optical and X-ray scintillation properties were investigated. The relatively short (~ 10 µm) ZnO NRs emitting in the near-band-edge region were found to be almost insensitive to X-rays. On the other hand, the higher XEL response of long ZnO NRs, which is a key parameter for evaluation of materials to be used as scintillators for high quality X-ray detection and imaging, along with a decay time response in the order of ns confirmed promising scintillation properties for fast and high-resolution X-ray detector applications., (© 2024. Crown.)

Background: Good timing resolution in medical imaging applications such as TOF-CT or TOF-PET can boost image quality or patient comfort significantly by reducing the influence of background noise. However, the timing resolution of state-of-the-art detectors in CT and PET are limited by their light emission process. Core-valence cross-luminescence is an alternative, but well-known compounds (e.g. BaF 2 ) pose several problems for medical imaging applications, such as their emission wavelength in the deep UV. CsZnCl-based materials show promise to solve this issue, as they provide fast decay times of 1-2 ns and an emission wavelength around 300 nm., Results: In this work, we investigated two CsZnCl-compounds: Cs 2 ZnCl 4 and Cs 3 ZnCl 5 . We validated the previously published decay times on a time-correlated single-photon counting setup with 1.786 ± 0.016 ns for Cs 2 ZnCl 4 and 1.034 ± 0.013 ns for Cs 3 ZnCl 5 . The setup's high resolution enabled the discovery of an additional prompt emission component with a significant abundance of 98 ± 18 (Cs 2 ZnCl 4 ) and 86 ± 14 (Cs 3 ZnCl 5 ) photons/MeV energy deposit. In a PET coincidence experiment, we measured the best coincidence time resolution (CTR) of 62 ps (FWHM) for Cs 2 ZnCL 4 coupled to FBK VUV SiPMs with silicon oil. To assess the CTR for lower energies, we filtered the energy along the Compton continuum and found a deteriorated CTR that seems to be mainly influenced by photon statistics. Furthermore, this study gave us a rough estimate of e.g. 150 ps (FWHM) CTR at 100 keV energy for Cs 2 ZnCL 4 . From measurements with high activity of 14 MBq to check for pile-up effects we assume that Cs 2 ZnCl 4 is better suited for high-rate time-of-flight applications than lutetium-based oxides. Simulations demonstrated that the stopping power of Cs 2 ZnCl 4 is lower than for LSO:Ce,Ca, meaning that a high amount of material would be needed for TOF-PET applications. However, the stopping power seems acceptable for applications in TOF-CT., Conclusions: The fast decay time, state-of-the-art CTR in benchtop experiments and high-rate suitability make CsZnCl materials a promising candidate for time-of-flight experiments. We consider especially TOF-CT a suitable application due to its relatively low X-ray energies (~ 100 keV) and the thusly acceptable stopping power of Cs 2 ZnCl 4 . Currently, further exploration of the prompt emission and its creation mechanism is planned, as well as investigating the light transport of Cs 2 ZnCl 4 in longer crystals., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

The effects of composition on the phase formation of multicomponent garnet crystals grown via directional solidification by the micro-pulling-down method are studied. A relatively wide range of rare-earth (RE) average ionic radii (AIR) is explored by formulating ten compositions from the system (Lu,Y,Ho,Dy,Tb,Gd) 3 Al 5 O 12 . Crystals were grown at either 0.05 or 0.20 mm min -1 . The hypothesis is that multicomponent compounds with large AIR will form secondary phases as the single-RE aluminum garnets formed by larger Tb 3+ or Gd 3+ ; this will result in crystals of poor optical quality. Crystals with large AIR have a central opaque region in optical microscopy images, which is responsible for their reduced transparency compared to crystals with small AIR. Slow pulling rates suppress the formation of the opaque region in crystals with intermediate AIR. Powder and single-crystal X-ray diffraction and electron probe microanalysis results indicate that the opaque region is a perovskite phase. Scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy measurements reveal eutectic inclusions at the outer surface of the crystals. The concentration of the eutectic inclusions increases with increasing AIR.

Lithium codoping has emerged as an effective strategy to enhance the light yield of oxide scintillators for radiation detection applications, but the understanding of the actual role played by Li + remains unclear. In this work, we comprehensively study the effects of Li codoping on optical and scintillation properties of Lu 2 SiO 5 :Ce (LSO:Ce) single crystals and reveal the critical role of site occupancy of Li. High-quality LSO:Ce single crystals codoped with 0.05, 0.1, and 0.3 at. % Li ions were grown by the Czochralski method. The optical absorption spectra confirm nonconversion of stable Ce 3+ to Ce 4+ in Li-codoped LSO:Ce regardless of the Li codoping concentration. The photoluminescence decay kinetics suggest an enhanced ionization of the excited 5d 1 state of Ce 3+ centers in highly codoped samples. A simultaneous improvement of scintillation light yield, decay time, and afterglow is achieved in LSO:Ce codoped with low concentrations of Li. The preferential occupation of Li at interstitial spaces and lutetium sites is proven to rely on its codoping concentration by using the 7 Li nuclear magnetic resonance technique. The concentration-dependent site occupancy of Li alters the defect structures of LSO:Ce, in particular resulting in a distinct change in the number of cerium spatially correlated oxygen vacancies confirmed by thermoluminescence and afterglow measurements.

Ternary halide scintillators are commonly prepared from a mixture of commercially available binary halides. The initial binary halides may contain excess halogen ions or have different volatilities, which could lead to loss of stoichiometry of the resulting ternary halide crystals and potentially negatively affect optical and scintillation properties. In this work, the effects of vacuum aging of the melt (melt aging) and use of off-stoichiometric melts via introduction of excess CsI on the crystal quality and scintillation properties of CsSrI3:Eu(2+), a promising scintillator for gamma-ray detection applications, are investigated. The phase purity of the grown samples was confirmed by powder X-ray diffraction and differential scanning calorimeter measurements, and the existence of matrix composition variations is revealed by energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy analyses. An abnormal relationship between the full energy peak and the shaping time, i.e. full energy peak broadening or existence of two full energy peaks, in the melt-aged and off-stoichiometric samples is observed. It is ascribed to a slow scintillation decay event in a time scale between 15 and 50 μs. For the CsSrI3:Eu(2+) single crystal grown from a stoichiometric melt without melt aging treatment, an energy resolution of 5.0% at 662 keV and a light yield of 48,000 ± 2000 photons per MeV can be achieved at a size of 1.4 cm(3).