Growth, optical and scintillation properties of Gd3+doped Bi4Si3O12single crystals

Pure Bi4Si3O12(BSO) and Bi4Si3O12:Gd (BSO:Gd) crystals with nominal concentrate of 1.0-6.0 mol% Gd2O3were grown by the modified vertical Bridgman method. The X-ray powder diffraction, transmission and fluorescence spectra have been investigated on BSO:Gd crystals. Scintillation properties of Gd3+doped Bi4Si3O12single crystals have been investigated. Doped with small amount of Gd2O3(1.0-6.0 mol%), the relative light yield and energy resolution of BSO crystals were improved significantly. The experimental data indicates that the sensitization effect of a small amount of Gd3+doping enables the intrinsic defects reduce, and improve the light yield and a large amount of Gd3+doping can cause the new crystal field distortion and further affect the intrinsic luminescence of Bi3+. These results indicate that BSO:Gd crystals could be one of the promising candidates for replacing BGO in some applications such as electromagnetic calorimeter and dual readout in nuclear or high energy physics.