Very fast Yb[sub x]Y[sub 1-x]AlO[sub 3] single-crystal scintillators.

Scintillation, radioluminescence, photoluminescence, and thermoluminescence characteristics of Czochralski-grown Yb[sub x]Y[sub 1-x]AlO[sub 3] single crystals for x=0.02–0.45 are described. Under x-ray excitation, the intensity of Yb[sup 3+] charge-transfer luminescence is increasing with x and reaches at room temperature more than 11% of Bi[sub 4]Ge[sub 3]O[sub 12] (BGO) for x=0.45, while at 80 K it is over 170% of BGO for x>=0.3. At room temperature, scintillation decay shows a dominant decay time of 0.8–0.9 ns for x>=0.3 and no significant slow components were detected. The photoluminescence decay time is tuned by temperature and Yb concentration from tens of nanoseconds at 80 K down to about 0.8 ns at 295 K. Thermoluminescence glow curve below room temperature evidences very low concentration of shallow traps compared to the Ce-doped YAlO[sub 3] scintillator. © 2004 American Institute of Physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]