Abstract
Current technologies for X-ray detection rely on scintillation from expensive inorganic crystals grown at high-temperature, which so far has hindered the development of large-area scintillator arrays. Thanks to the presence of heavy atoms, solution-grown hybrid lead halide perovskite single crystals exhibit short X-ray absorption length and excellent detection efficiency. Here we compare X-ray scintillator characteristics of three-dimensional (3D) MAPbI3 and MAPbBr3 and two-dimensional (2D) (EDBE)PbCl4 hybrid perovskite crystals. X-ray excited thermoluminescence measurements indicate the absence of deep traps and a very small density of shallow trap states, which lessens after-glow effects. All perovskite single crystals exhibit high X-ray excited luminescence yields of >120,000 photons/MeV at low temperature. Although thermal quenching is significant at room temperature, the large exciton binding energy of 2D (EDBE)PbCl4 significantly reduces thermal effects compared to 3D perovskites, and moderate light yield of 9,000 photons/MeV can be achieved even at room temperature. This highlights the potential of 2D metal halide perovskites for large-area and low-cost scintillator devices for medical, security and scientific applications.
Highlights
The investigation of X-ray detectors started with the discovery of X-rays by Wilhelm Röntgen, who noticed the glow from a barium platino-cyanide screen placed besides a vacuum tube[1,2]
(EDBE)PbCl4 belongs to the general class of APbX4 (X =I, Br, Cl and A =bidentate organic cation) “two-dimensional” perovskite crystals[24]; it consists of the stack of -oriented perovskite inorganic layers forming a 2D Pb-X network in alternation with organic sheets of di-ammonium cations EDBE2+ (Fig. 1)
Our findings confirm that hybrid lead halide perovskite single crystals are very promising scintillator materials in terms of low fabrication costs, low intrinsic trap density, nanosecond fast response, and potentially high light yield
Summary
The investigation of X-ray detectors started with the discovery of X-rays by Wilhelm Röntgen, who noticed the glow from a barium platino-cyanide screen placed besides a vacuum tube[1,2]. The first is photon-to-current conversion, in which a semiconducting material directly converts the incoming radiation into electrical current[4,5,6]; the second is X-ray to UV-visible photon down-conversion, in which a scintillator material is coupled to a sensitive photodetector operating at lower photon energies[2] Both methods are compelling for practical implementations, their viability will depend on the development of new materials to overcome some of the current limitations, such as high cost, small area, and low conversion efficiency of the X-ray absorbers. By combining the good high-energy response with large absorption cross section deriving from large thickness and high mass-density, single crystal perovskite scintillators are expected to improve detection efficiency of keV X- or γ-rays
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