Cerium and europium doping of Ruddlesden-Popper aluminate phases and their radioluminescence properties

Abstract

Although many scintillator detectors with the fast and efficient detection of high-energy radiation are commercially produced, new materials are still of great interest. Oxide matrices doped with ions possessing fast and intense 5d–4f radiative transition are one of the researched groups of materials. So called Ruddlesden–Popper phases are structures combining halite-like and perovskite-like structures. The aluminates subgroup (AII n+1-yAIII y) n+1 Al n O3n+1 has been only rarely studied for scintillation use. These phases are stable oxides with a relatively high density and, moreover, they melt congruently, which enables growth from a melt. In this study, we tested Ce3+- and Eu2+-doped (Sr,Ca)1(Gd,Y) n Al n O3n+1 (n = 1; 2) analogues. The samples were prepared by the chelating sol-gel method combined with the annealing in reducing atmosphere to reduce both ions to the intended valence. After the samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction, radioluminescence was used for the basic study of luminescence behaviour of Ce3+ and Eu2+ ions. While Ce3+-doped samples exhibited the 5d-4f radiative transition, Eu-doped samples manifested only luminescence spectra characteristic for Eu3+ ions.