Optical, luminescence, and scintillation properties of ZnO and ZnO:Ga ceramics

TL;DR

This study investigates the optical, luminescence, and scintillation properties of ZnO and Ga-doped ZnO ceramics, demonstrating how doping alters luminescence characteristics and yields high photon output, relevant for scintillation applications.

Contribution

It introduces a method to tailor luminescence properties of ZnO ceramics through doping with Ga and N, providing new insights into their optical and scintillation behaviors.

Findings

Undoped ZnO ceramic has high transparency and luminous yield (9050 photons/MeV).

Ga doping enhances edge luminescence with a decay time of about 1 ns.

Doping modifies the ratio of edge to intraband luminescence.

Abstract

Uniaxial hot pressing has been used to obtain ceramics based on zinc oxide, and their optical, x-ray-structure, luminescence, and scintillation characteristics have been studied. It is shown that, by changing the concentration of the dopant (Ga) and the codopant (N), it is possible to change the intensities of the edge band (397.5 nm) and the intraband luminescence (510 nm) of the ZnO luminescence, as well as their ratio. Undoped ZnO ceramic has good transparency in the visible region and fairly high luminous yield: 9050 photons per MeV. Ceramic ZnO:Ga possesses intense edge luminescence with a falloff time of about 1 ns.