Study Of Tb³⁺/Ce³⁺ Co-doped Scintillating Glasses With Fast Decay Time

With the rapid development of nuclear physics, high-energy physics,nuclear medical science, industrial detection and other fields, scintillators which can convert high-energy radiation into visible light, have attracted more and more attention. In order to enhance the time resolution of scintillation detection, almost all of the scintillation counting fields require fast scintillators. The need of the scintillators with short decay time is more urgent than ever. In all of the scintillating materials, scintillating crystals, with fast fluorescence decay time and high light yield, are most widely used scintillators. But the scintillating crystals have some shortcomings, including the complicated preparation process, the long production cycle and the high cost, so finding alternative scintillators with fast decay characteristic is necessary. Due to the adjustable component design, simple preparation process, low cost, and large size, scintillating glass could been a candidate material in scintillating field.The decay time of Ce3+ doped scintillating glass has been explored. Under UV irradiation the scintillator prepared by melt-quenching method gives out a blue-green light which the emission spectrum is from 425 nm to 625 nm.The fluorescence decay time of the scintillator is shorter than 3.7ns which means the scintillating glass doped with Ce3+ has great time response characteristic.Tb3+/Ce3+ co-doped scintillating glass with the Tb3+ ions luminescence center were prepared by melt-quenching method. Under the synergy of Ce3+ ions, heavy-metal oxide(Pb O、Bi2O3、Sb2O3) and Zn O component, the decay time of the scintillating glass will be inspected. Some basic properties were measured, including density, transmittance, fluorescence spectra, fluorescence decay time and light yield. The average density of samples is 4.83g/cm3 which means that this scintillator has short length of radiation. The transmittance of sample in visible spectrum is about 80%, and the highest transmittance is about 99%. Under UV irradiation the sample gives out a bright blue-green emission which the peak wavelength of emission light is 542.4nm.The fluorescence decay time is shorter than 3.6ns, and the light yield is 4.3% of Na I:T1’s. It can be seen by the above test results that the Tb3+/Ce3+ co-doped scintillating glass has heavy density, high transmittance and short fluorescence decay time, it could be a potential candidate scintillating materials in the fast counting field.At last, the preparation of glass with high uniformity and large size were explored, and the prepared scintillating glass with large size has great optical quality.