Scintillation properties of ceramics based on zinc oxide

TL;DR

This study investigates the scintillation properties of zinc oxide ceramics, demonstrating their potential as fast, efficient scintillators with promising optical and luminescent characteristics for radiation detection applications.

Contribution

It presents the preparation and characterization of ZnO:Zn ceramics as a new type of scintillator with detailed optical and luminescent properties.

Findings

Emission bands at 500 and 380 nm detected

Light output is about 80% of BGO scintillator

Decay constant measured at approximately 10.4 ns

Abstract

Ceramics ZnO:Zn of 20mm diameter and 1.6mm thickness with an optical transparency up to 0.33 in the visible region have been prepared by hot pressing technique. Scintillating and luminescent characteristics such as emission spectra, decay time, yield, and TSL glow curve have been measured under X-ray excitation. Two emission bands peaking at 500 and 380 nm were detected, the light output was about 80% of that for standard BGO scintillator, main decay constant was 10.4 +/- 0.1 ns. The obtained data allow us to consider the ZnO:Zn ceramics as a perspective scintillator. Finally, the investigation shows that other ZnO-based fast scintillators can be fabricated in the form of optical ceramics.