Lanthanum Chloride Scintillator for X-ray Detection.

In this presentation we describe the testing of a new cerium doped Lanthanum Chloride crystal (LaCl3:Ce), which makes an excellent scintillation material for X-ray counting applications. Detailed measurements were taken to determine the properties of the scintillator over an energy range of 5 to 60KeV; the results demonstrate that, when used with an appropriate PMT, the crystal sustains high count rates, minimal dead time and good energy resolution. For example an energy resolution of 35% (FWHM) was achieved at 22KeV and count rates of up to 1MHz are possible without dead-time correction. A comparison of LaCl3:Ce with two conventional scintillation materials, YAP:Ce and NaI(Tl) is also presented, which shows that that LaCl3:Ce offers a good balance of performance parameters for X-ray experiments. © 2007 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]