High transparency Ce3+-doped oxyfluoride glass scintillator for X-ray imaging and γ-ray detection

High transparency Ce 3+ -doped dense gadolinium aluminum borosilicate (GS x ) glass scintillator was synthesized in reducing atmosphere by melt-quenching process. The transmittance of the glasses exceeds 80%, and the light attenuation length is between 5-20 cm within the range of 400–600 nm. GS x glass shows an photoluminescence (PL) in range of 350–550 nm, with the strongest emission peak around 420 nm. The PL decay time of GS x glasses is around 37 ns, with a maximum PL quantum yield of 44.05%. The integrated X-ray excited luminescence (XEL) intensity of GS S glass is 52.5% compared with BGO crystal. For X-ray imaging, GS L glass based imaging system shows a high spatial resolution of 9 lp/mm, which is comparable to CsI:Tl X-ray detectors. Under γ-ray, the highest light yield of GS S glass is 1235 ph/MeV with an energy resolution of 24.0% at 662 keV, close to that of BSO crystal. The scintillation decay time of GS x glasses is consisted of fast (∼100 ns) and slow (∼560 ns) components. In thermally stimulated luminescence (TSL), GS S glass exhibits a strong TSL peak at approximately 440 K, with low intensity shoulders at about 520 K, implying different types of defects and traps. Therefore, GS x glass has promising prospects for X-ray imaging and high-energy physics applications.