Ce3+-doped glass scintillator with high density and light yield for imaging application

A series of Ce 3+ -doped Gd 2 O 3 -GdF 3 -Al 2 O 3 -B 2 O 3 -SiO 2 glass scintillators (GSC x and GLC x ) were successfully synthesized in reducing atmosphere for future imaging application. The transmittance of GSC x glasses exceeds 85 % in range of 500–800 nm, and the cut-off edge red shifts as the Ce 3+ concentration increases. In photoluminescence (PL), GSC x glass scintillators have a 360–600 nm broadband emission with a shoulder peak at around 450 nm. Meanwhile, the PL lifetime of GSC x glasses is close to the CeF 3 crystals, and the PL QY of GSC 3 glass scintillator reaches up 70.2 %. For scintillation application, the integral XEL intensity of GSC 2 and GSC 3 glasses is 31.3 % and 24.4 % of that of BGO crystal. GLC 2 and GLC 3 glasses exhibit similar spatial resolution of approximately 7 lp·mm −1 . Moreover, the light yields of GSC 2 and GSC 3 glass scintillator are 1702 and 1690 ph/MeV excited by γ-ray, respectively. The nonproportionality of GSC x glasses is less than 3 % in the range of 100–1400 keV due to the large density and Z eff . As Ce 3+ concentration increases, both the fast and slow components of the glasses decrease (103.7 ns–89.7 ns, 1454.4 ns–1012.8 ns), and the proportion of fast component also increased from 3.3 % to 4.7 %. For γ-ray imaging, the scintillation light events of the glass can be observed from SiPM array, and the central position (−2, −1) have the highest count rate of the system. The results show that GSCx and GLCx glass scintillators deserve further development for future applications.