Optimized crystal growth and luminescence properties of Ce 3+ ions doped Li 6 Gd(BO 3 ) 3 , Li 6 Y(BO 3 ) 3 and their mixed crystals

Thermal neutron scintillation improvement in Ce:Li6Y(BO3)3 single crystals by thermal treatment

“…The as-grown sample exhibits the distinctive absorption bands of Ce 3+ below 380 nm, corresponding with the 4f →5d j ( j = 1-4) intra-atomic transitions (marked with yellow arrows), which differs from the Ce 4+ -related broad absorption band reported for Ce:LYBO crystals doped with CeO 2 . 12,13,15,22) This clearly indicates that the original Ce 3+ valence from doping with CeF 3 could be preserved during the growth of present Ce:LYBO. The additional scattering from the host can be discerned by comparison with the as-grown undoped sample in Fig.…”

“…During the past two decades, the scintillation properties of Ce:LYBO have been evaluated, finding that in spite of its a priori promising properties, its light yield is disappointingly low, with 215 and 1200 ph MeV −1 upon α particle and X-ray irradiation, respectively. [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] The grown crystals so far, mainly by the Czochralski (Cz) method with CeO 2 as dopant, tended to have plenty of cracks and always presented a remarkable milky-appearance, 12,13,15) thus indicating that the boules possessed a very low crystalline and optical quality.…”

Transparent Microcomposite Films Based on a Ce-Doped Li6Gd(BO3)3Scintillator for Radiation Detection

“…The decay time components obtained by the fitting are shown in Table . The decay time of all three types components can be corresponded to the data reported previously in the literature studies. − The fast decay components of 3.60–3.76 ns and the intermediate decay components of 56.22–95.10 ns are attributed to the intrinsic scintillation decay of Ce 3+ ions, while the slow decay components of 257.80–594.44 ns are attributed to the energy transfer of Gd 3+ → Ce 3+ …”

“…To investigate the scintillation decay time components of the LGBO/PMMA composite scintillator, the decay times under irradiation from different radioactive sources were collected (Figure 7a). All decay variations can be well fitted by the triple exponential function 34 36 For efficient neutron detection, an excellent neutron−gamma discrimination (NGD) ratio (or neutron−gamma efficiency ratio) is required for a practical application such as neutron scattering, security, or nondestructive testing in industry. From the fitting results in Table 1, the decay time components of 252 Cf neutrons and 60 Co γ-rays are different.…”

Scattering-free Ce:LYBO single crystals for thermal neutron detection

“…Despite these promising characteristics, the poor crystalline and optical quality of Ce:LYBO crystals has largely discouraged its development for scintillation applications so far. [12][13][14][15][16] Recently, we have demonstrated that a post-growth thermal treatment close to T m can drastically reduce the milky appearance of crystals while the light yield (LY) rises to 4650 ph/n. 11) Nevertheless, to date it is still unknown, on the one hand, what are the origin and nature of the scattering centers, and on the other hand, what is the annealing mechanism that improves the scintillation response.…”