Optical properties of YAG:Ce and GGG:Ce scintillation crystals irradiated with a high fluence proton beam

TL;DR

This study investigates how high-fluence proton irradiation affects the optical transparency and light yield of YAG:Ce and GGG:Ce scintillation crystals, revealing moderate transparency loss but significant reduction in light output over time.

Contribution

It provides new data on the optical stability of YAG:Ce and GGG:Ce crystals under high-fluence proton irradiation, relevant for their use in radiation environments.

Findings

Transparency decreased by no more than 7% after irradiation.

YAG:Ce light yield dropped by about 35% after one year.

Both crystals maintained most of their transparency despite irradiation.

Abstract

In this paper, we report on the study of the optical properties of YAG:Ce and GGG:Ce garnet crystals after irradiation in a 660~MeV proton beam with a fluence up to 8.9$\times$10$^{14}$ protons/cm$^2$. We found that the transparency of both crystals fell by no more than 7\% in the region of their own luminescence. The light yield of a YAG:Ce sample, measured one year after irradiation, dropped by about 35\%.