Improved scintillation proportionality and energy resolution of LaBr3:Ce at 80K

TL;DR

This study investigates how lowering temperature improves the proportionality and energy resolution of LaBr3:Ce scintillators, revealing potential for enhanced detector performance and insights into scintillation nonproportionality mechanisms.

Contribution

The paper demonstrates that reducing temperature enhances the proportionality and energy resolution of LaBr3:Ce scintillators, providing new understanding of nonproportionality effects.

Findings

Energy resolution improves at lower temperatures.

Nonproportionality decreases with temperature reduction.

Potential for further performance enhancement of LaBr3:Ce detectors.

Abstract

Using highly monochromatic synchrotron X-rays in the energy range from 10.5 keV to 100 keV the temperature dependence of nonproportionality and energy resolution of LaBr3 scintillators doped with 5% Ce3+ were studied at 80K, 295K, and 450K. Improvement of the proportionality and better energy resolution was observed on lowering the temperature. This effect suggests that the already outstanding energy resolution of LaBr3:Ce can be improved even further. It also may provide new clues to better understand the processes that cause nonproportionality of inorganic scintillator response.