Luminescence and light yield of Ce3+-doped (60−x)SiO2-xBaF2-20Al2O3-20Gd2O3 scintillation glasses: The effect of BaF2 admixture

Abstract

Ce3+-doped dense glasses with high light yield (LY) are promising scintillators for use in high-energy particle physics research and radiation sensors for high-energy X- and γ- ray detection. In this work, Ce3+-doped (60-x)SiO2-xBaF2-20Al2O3-20Gd2O3 oxyfluoride glasses have been prepared under a CO reducing atmosphere. Substitution of SiO2 by BaF2 has been made to increase the density, and the effects on luminescence and scintillation properties have been investigated. The amorphous nature of the prepared glass is confirmed by the XRD profile showing an absence of any diffraction peaks. The broad photoluminescence (PL) emission band of the Ce3+ 5d–4f transition in the 330–580 nm range is observed peaking around 385 nm and the PL decay is governed in the range of 46–53 ns decay time. The 10 mol% BaF2 glass with density of 4.54 g/cm3 shows the highest LY value of 1590 photons/MeV and energy resolution of 16.5% in the pulse height spectrum of 662 keV γ rays, and the LY of 141 photons/MeV and energy resolution of 21.7% in the pulse height spectrum of 5.5 MeV α particles.