TADF-Based X-ray Screens with Simultaneously Efficient Singlet and Triplet Energy Transfer for High Spatial Imaging Resolution.

Abstract

X-ray imaging scintillators play a crucial role in medical examinations and safety inspections, making them an essential technology in our modern lives. However, commercially available high-performance scintillators are fabricated exclusively from ceramic materials that require harsh preparation conditions and are costly to produce. Organic scintillators have emerged as a promising alternative due to their transparency and ease of fabrication at a low cost. Unfortunately, organic scintillators suffer from inefficient exciton utilization efficiency, leading to poor performance in X-ray imaging screens and hindering their commercialization. In this study, we explore the use of thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) chromophores (4CzIPN-I and 4CzTPN) to enhance the absorption of ionizing radiation in X-ray imaging screens by an order of magnitude. By leveraging the unique features of TADF chromophores through simultaneously singlet-singlet and triplet-triplet efficient energy transfers at the interface between two different TADF systems, we demonstrate an impressive X-ray sensitivity and radioluminescence intensity. Our time-resolved experiments and density functional theory (DFT) calculations provide further evidence for the effectiveness of this approach. The resulting X-ray imaging screens based on this efficient interfacial energy transfer process in TADF systems exhibit outstanding X-ray imaging resolution of 20 line pairs/mm, the highest resolution reported thus far for organic scintillators. This resolution is at least two times higher than that achieved by commonly used commercial inorganic scintillators in the X-ray imaging market. These findings introduce a new component for greatly improving the performance of organic X-ray imaging scintillators, supporting a wide range of emerging X-ray applications with exceptional spatial resolution.