A comparative study via Monte Carlo simulation of new inorganic scintillator Cs2HfCl6for applications in nuclear medicine, security and defense, and astrophysics

Abstract

Cs2HfCl6 (CHC) is one of the most promising recently discovered new inorganic single crystal scintillator that has high light output, non-hygroscopic, no self-activity, having energy resolution significantly better than NaI(Tl), even approaching that of LaBr3 yet can also potentially be at a much lower cost than LaBr3. This study attempts to use Monte Carlo simulation to examine the great potential offered by this new scintillator. CHC’s detector performance is compared via simulation with that of 4 typical existing scintillators of the same size and same PMT readout. Two halide-scintillators: NaI(Tl) and LaBr3 and two oxide-scintillators: GSO and LSO were used in this simulation to compare their 122 keV and 511 keV gamma responses with that of CHC with both spectroscopy application and imaging applications in mind. Initial simulation results are very promising and consistent with reported experimental measurements. Beside detector energy resolution, image-quality measurement parameters commonly used to characterize imaging detectors as in nuclear medicine such as Light Response Function (LRF) which goes in parallel with spatial resolution and simulated position spectra will also be presented and discussed.