Exploratory research on the development of novel Ce3+ -activated phosphate glass scintillators

Dariusz Wisniewski, Lynn A. Boatner, Joanne O. Ramey, Monika Wisniewska, John S. Neal, Gerald E. Jellison

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21 Scopus citations

Abstract

We report the discovery of a new family of ${\rm Ce}^{3+}$-activated phosphate glass scintillators that can be formed either with or without the addition of $^{6}{\rm Li}$, for neutron or X-ray/gamma-ray radiation detection, respectively. Trivalent cerium can be efficiently introduced into these phosphate glasses in surprisingly high concentrations in the form of anhydrous cerium tri-chloride. Additionally, these glasses can be melted and poured at the relatively low temperatures of 10001050 $^{\circ}{\rm C}$ (i.e., substantially lower than silicate glasses), and to retain the cerium in the trivalent state it is not necessary to maintain highly reducing conditions during the synthesis process. The family of alkaline-earth-alkali phosphate glasses investigated here represents a system with two dissimilar cationsthereby offering a large range of potential compositional variations, substitutions, and combinations. In order to alter the scintillator characteristics, we have explored part of that compositional space by studying Ca-Na, Ca-Li, Ca-Cs, Ca-Rb, Ca-K and Ca-Ba-Na phosphate glasses, as well as various co-doping and post-synthesis thermal processing schemes. A series of experiments under x ray, gamma ray, and neutron excitations was carried out. The broad, peaking at about 354 nm, UV scintillation of these glasses is well suited for applications that use common photomultipliers with bi-alkali photo-cathodes. Pulse shape measurements show that the primary component of the scintillation in most of these glasses corresponds to 7590% of the emitted photons, and it decays with a time constant of 30 to 40 ns, which classifies these materials as reasonably fast scintillators. Although the gamma-induced light yield of these new scintillating phosphate glasses is, thus far, only about 30% of that of commercial GS20 silicate glass, due to the generally faster scintillation, the initial amplitude of the scintillation pulse of these glasses is close to that of the above-mentioned GS20 scintillator.

Original languageEnglish
Article number4723817
Pages (from-to)3692-3702
Number of pages11
JournalIEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science
Volume55
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2008

Funding

Manuscript received July 11, 2008; revised September 22, 2008. Current version published December 31, 2008. The research was carried out in the Center for Radiation Detection Materials and Systems at ORNL and is supported in part by the NNSA Office of Nonproliferation Research and Engineering (NA-22), USDOE and in part by the Department of Homeland Security, Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. ORNL is operated by UT-Battelle, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725.

FundersFunder number
NNSA Office of Nonproliferation Research and EngineeringNA-22
U.S. Department of EnergyDE-AC05-00OR22725
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Domestic Nuclear Detection Office

    Keywords

    • Gamma-ray detectors
    • Glass scintillators
    • Neutron detectors
    • X-ray detectors

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