A COMPARISON OF THE LUMINESCENCE AND SCINTILLATION PROPERTIES OF Lu2.5Y0.5Al5O12:Ce SINGLE CRYSTAL AND TRANSLUCENT CERAMIC

This research studied the comparative luminescence and scintillation properties of Ce-doped Lu2.5Y0.5Al5O12 single crystal and translucent ceramic. The translucent ceramic and single crystal samples were fabricated by spark plasma sintering (SPS) furnace and the floating zone (FZ) furnace, respectively. The microstructure of both samples was investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) technique. The transmittance of single crystal showed 77% in visible light range with the absorption at 350 nm (4f-5d2) and 450 nm (4f-5d1), while the translucent ceramic exhibited approximately 8% in visible light range with absorption is 350 nm (4f-5d2) and 490 nm (4f-5d1). The photoluminescence (PL) emission band was 518 nm (Ce3+: 5d-4f transition) for single crystal and 548 nm (Ce3+: 5d-4f transition) of translucent ceramic. The radioluminescence spectra presented a broad emission band 490-700 nm for both samples. At 662 keV γ-rays, the scintillation light yield value of single crystal and translucent ceramic was 6,700 and 4,900 photons/MeV, respectively, via comparison with Ce-doped Gd2SiO5 (GSO:Ce). The PL decay curves were fitted by single exponential function with a fast decay time constant of 51 ns for single crystal and 60 ns for translucent ceramic.