Scintillation properties of Ce3+-doped YCl3 and YBr3

Abstract

Abstract The dependence of the scintillation properties of Ce 3+ -doped YCl 3 and YBr 3 on activator concentration (0.5, 1 and 2 mol%) has been studied. The radioluminescence spectra of both materials contain asymmetric bands with maxima located at 3.13 eV (383 nm) for YCl 3 :Ce 3+ and 2.84 eV (422 nm) for YBr 3 :Ce 3+ . The scintillation pulse decay curves for both materials are described by two components with decay constants of 37 and 640 ns for YCl 3 :Ce 3+ and 36 and 450 ns for YBr 3 :Ce 3+ , the fractions of the faster component being 86 and 79 per cent, respectively. The dependences of the light yield of the studied materials on Ce 3+ concentration pass through a maximum near 1 mol% of the activator, and the maximum light yields (relative to NaI:Tl) are 8700 photons per MeV for YCl 3 :Ce 3+ and 20,600 photons per MeV for YBr 3 :Ce 3+ .