Structural and Scintillation Properties of Ce3+:Gd3Al3Ga2O12 Translucent Ceramics Prepared by One-Step Sintering

Abstract

Cerium-doped gadolinium aluminum gallium garnet (Ce3+:Gd3Al3Ga2O12, Ce3+:GAGG) ceramic is a promising scintillation material. In this study, Ce3+:Gd3Al3Ga2O12 scintillation ceramics were prepared by the one-step sintering of commercially available Gd2O3, Al2O3, Ga2O3, and CeO2 powders in a flowing oxygen atmosphere at 1600 °C by solid-phase reaction sintering. For all the Ce3+:Gd3Al3Ga2O12 ceramic samples doped with different amounts of Ce3+ doping, dense ceramics were obtained. The structure, photoluminescence, and scintillation properties of the Ce3+:Gd3Al3Ga2O12 ceramics have been investigated. The average grain size of samples sintered at 1600 °C is about 2 μm. The X-ray excitation luminescence peak is around 560 nm, which is consistent with that of Ce3+:Gd3Al3Ga2O12 single crystals, matching well with the computed tomography X-ray detector’s response sensitivity. The light yield is higher compared to the standard reference sample—lutetium yttrium orthosilicate single crystal.

Preparation of Ce-Doped Gd3(Al, Ga)5O12 Nanopowders via Microwave-Assisted Homogenization Precipitation for Transparent Ceramic Scintillators

“…It is worth noting that there is still room for the improvement of the optical quality of the Ce: GGAG transparent ceramics by using nanopowders synthesized via MAHP since in-line transmittances of a Ce: GGAG transparent ceramic have already been reported to be as high as 78.6% in the visible wavelength range [28]. The optical performances of the Ce: GGAG transparent ceramics fabricated via a solid-state reactive method have been reviewed, as listed in Table 1 [29,[33][34][35][36][37], from which, one can conclude that proper category and amount of sintering aids together with an optimized HIP process are critical for the full The optical quality of the scintillators is significant for a wide array of imaging applications, including security inspection and medical diagnostics, especially those that require ultrahigh spatial resolution at a low radiation dose rate [19,32]. It is worth noting that there is still room for the improvement of the optical quality of the Ce: GGAG transparent ceramics by using nanopowders synthesized via MAHP since in-line transmittances of a Ce: GGAG transparent ceramic have already been reported to be as high as 78.6% in the visible wavelength range [28].…”

“…It is worth noting that there is still room for the improvement of the optical quality of the Ce: GGAG transparent ceramics by using nanopowders synthesized via MAHP since in-line transmittances of a Ce: GGAG transparent ceramic have already been reported to be as high as 78.6% in the visible wavelength range [28]. The optical performances of the Ce: GGAG transpar-ent ceramics fabricated via a solid-state reactive method have been reviewed, as listed in Table 1 [29,[33][34][35][36][37], from which, one can conclude that proper category and amount of sintering aids together with an optimized HIP process are critical for the full densification of GGAG transparent ceramics. Jiang and coworkers [38] reported a Ce: GGAG transparent ceramic with a relatively high transmittance of 68% by using powders prepared from a novel wet chemistry synthesis method called ultrasonic enhanced chemical co-precipitation method (UCC).…”

“…This should be the highest light yield for the currently reported transparent ceramic scintillators. In addition, some other cases with high light yields were reported for gadolinium-galliumaluminum garnet ceramics [33,39,42]. However, they were optically translucent or even opaque, which restricts their applications in many fields, such as high-sensitivity imaging.…”