Flexible and Reabsorption-Free Perovskite Scintillators for Low-Dose X-ray Detection and High-Resolution Imaging

Abstract

Recently, metal halide perovskite scintillators have demonstrated high potential applications in X-ray detection. Notably, perovskite scintillators usually suffer from serious self-absorption, severely affecting their scintillation performance and practical application. Here, we explore the scintillation properties of perovskite CsPbBr3 nanowires (NWs) and further propose an energy transfer (ET) strategy from perovskite NWs to commercial organic dyes to eliminate perovskites’ self-absorption. This ET strategy can effectively improve the perovskite scintillator’s performance: it brings a 60 nm red-shift radioluminescence (RL) with a faster RL recombination rate. More importantly, such an ET process also contributes a low detection limit of 152 nGy/s, a superior spatial resolution of about 11.5 lp mm–1, and an optical yield up to about 4.1 times compared with pure perovskite NWs scintillators. When applying multiple ET processes, the RL of the perovskite/dyes scintillator can be further shifted ∼130 nm to the red light region for achieving a red scintillator screen, overcoming the instability problem of the present perovskite-based red scintillator. In addition, the composite scintillator also demonstrated good radiation stability, excellent flexibility, and resistance to bending damage. Our finding has proposed an effective ET strategy with scientific and technological importance for developing reabsorption-free and performance-effective perovskite scintillators.