Visible–Near Infrared Scintillation Properties of Er-Doped Bi4Si3O12 Single Crystals

Abstract

We synthesized the 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0% Er-doped Bi4Si3O12 (BSO) single crystals and researched the photoluminescence (PL) and scintillation properties in visible–near infrared ranges. The X-ray diffraction analysis indicated that the synthesized samples had single-phase structure of BSO. In transmission spectra, all the samples had some absorption peaks owing to the 4f-4f transitions of Er3+ ions. In PL and scintillation properties, all the samples had the emission peaks due to the 6p-6s transitions of Bi3+ ions and the 4f-4f transitions of Er3+ ions. Afterglow levels at 20 ms after X-ray irradiation of the 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0% Er-doped samples were 348.9, 587.9, 616.6, and 666.6 ppm, respectively. The light yields of the 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0% Er-doped samples were 1600, 1200, 900, and 750 ± 10% ph/MeV, respectively. The dose rate response functions of all the samples showed the linear relationship between dose rate and scintillation intensity from 0.006 to 6 Gy h−1, and the 2.0% Er-doped sample had the highest intensity among the samples