Scintillation of Some Germanates and Stannates Doped With ${\rm Ce}^{3+}$

Abstract

The efficiency of the final stage of luminescent center excitation mechanism in scintillator plays a major role to accomplish fast and bright scintillation materials. We focus our attention on complex oxide crystals doped with Ce <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3+</sup> because the Ce <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3+</sup> ion inter-configuration luminescence presumes the simultaneous presence of different excitation mechanisms. The charge transfer excitation mechanism of the doping ion luminescence naturally appears from the fact, that heterovalent Ce ions have a high cross section of hole capture. Another mechanism of scintillation, which is defined as an energy transfer excitation mechanism, originates in crystals from sensitizing of an activator luminescence by the intrinsic luminescence centers. Numerous compounds of rare earth aluminates and silicates show a high light yield scintillation due to combined contribution of both mechanisms. Here we discuss the luminescence excitation mechanisms and scintillation properties of known and new Sn and Ge based compounds doped with Ce. Sn and Ge ions allow to construct many compounds which are isostructural to silicates and aluminates. The factors which influence the energy transfer efficiency in their oxides have been considered.