A novel amalgamation of Gd2MoB2O9:CeF3 phosphor with ZnO: BaO: B2O3 glass using microwave synthesis for scintillation material applications

Abstract

This work investigates the physical, structural, optical, photoluminescence, and X-ray luminescence properties of Gd1.5MoB2O9: 0.5CeF3 mixed 10ZnO:35BaO:55B2O3 glass with a weight ratio of 1:9. The samples were prepared by heating with microwave synthesis technique varying the time from 5 min to 10 min. The structural studies were analysed using X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) and the oxidation of cerium atom were analysed using X-ray analysis near edge spectra (XANES). An X-ray diffraction analysis to investigate the structure of samples using by a Shimadzu XRD–6100 diffractometer. XANES spectra of the Ce-LIII edge for samples show peaks at ∼ 5728 eV, confirming the presence of Ce3+ ion and Ce4+ion. A UV-VIS-NIR spectrophotometer was used to record the absorption spectra (Shimadzu, 3600) in the 200–1000 nm wavelength. The photoluminescence of the sample show overlapping between excitation and emission spectra in the range of 300–450 nm by monitoring at room temperature with a spectrofluorophotometer (Cary-Eclipse). These emissions correspond to the 5d – 4f transitions of Ce3+ ion. From radiation studies, the luminescence spectra under x-ray as source show the emission peak at 411 nm that corresponds to the 5d - 2F5/2 and 5d - 2F7/2 transitions of Ce3+ ion. The samples with the highest intensity were compared with bismuth germanate oxide (BGO) crystals, which are used as radiation detectors, and were found to be as effective as 35.47% of the BGO crystals. The results obtained in the present work demonstrate that the current samples could be a potential candidate for use in scintillator applications.