Survey of Recent Research Results for New Fluor Materials

Abstract

ABSTRACTThere is worldwide interest in the use of fluor materials that emit visible light when exposed to ionizing radiation. Typically, fluors are used as components in high performance electromagnetic calorimeters, down-hole oil well loggers, temperature sensors for equipment with high speed moving parts, and beam positioning systems for large particle accelerators. A candidate fluor should have a large fluorescence efficiency, small reduction in output as a function of exposure, intense visible fluorescence spectrum, large material density, and small prompt fluorescence decay time.Over the last few years, new fluor materials have been located by organizations such as Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the Department of Defense. These new fluors, such as YAIO3:Ce, YSiO5:Ce, GdSiO5:Ce, Y2O2S doped with Tb, Pr, and Eu, and Gd2O0S doped with Th, Pr, and Eu, show a great deal of promise for use in the applications listed above.This paper will present a summary of fluor research completed by the authors over the last ten years. These results will be used to establish a fluor characterization program at the Acadiana Research Laboratory (ARL) that will move it to the front of this developing technology.