Single-crystal CeCl3(CH3OH)4: A new metal-organic cerium chloride methanol adduct for scintillator applications.

A new scintillator material consisting of a methanol adduct of cerium trichloride with the composition CeCl₃(CH₃OH)₄ has been discovered and crystallized in the form of large single crystals by solution growth in methanol. The peak emission of the x-ray-excited luminescence spectrum occurs at ∼364 nm. A light yield of up to ∼16 600 photons/MeV and an energy resolution of 11.4% were obtained using 662 keV gamma-ray photons. The scintillator decay time for 662 keV gamma-ray excitation was measured using the time-correlated, single-photon-counting method, and a nominal value of 64.4 ns was obtained. The molecular adduct CeCl₃(CH₃OH)₄ represents the first example of a rare-earth, metal-organic scintillator that is applicable to gamma ray, x ray, and neutron detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]