Temperature dependence of scintillation properties of SrMoO4

TL;DR

This study investigates how the scintillation and luminescence properties of SrMoO4 change with temperature, revealing complex decay mechanisms and potential for optimization in cryogenic rare event detection.

Contribution

The paper provides new insights into the temperature-dependent scintillation behavior of SrMoO4 and compares its performance with ZnWO4, suggesting avenues for material optimization.

Findings

Luminescence quenched at room temperature, active below 200 K.

SrMoO4 exhibits 15% light output compared to ZnWO4.

Complex decay kinetics with multiple components and delayed recombination.

Abstract

Studies of the X-ray luminescence and scintillation properties of a SrMoO4 crystal as function of temperature down to T=10 K have been carried out. The luminescence in SrMoO4 is quenched at room temperature, but below T<200 K the crystal exhibits a broad emission band with a maximum at a wavelength of 520 nm. The emission is attributed to the radiative decay of self-trapped excitons and defects acting as traps for the exactions at low temperatures. Such complex character of radiative decay is reflected in the kinetics which contains several components plus a contribution from delayed recombination at low temperatures. The temperature dependence of scintillation light output of SrMoO4 was studied. Comparing with a reference ZnWO4 crystal measured under the same experimental conditions it was found that the light output of SrMoO4 is 15+-5%. It is suggested, therefore, that there is scope for optimisation of strontium molybdate for application as scintillator in cryogenic rare event searches