Luminescent and Scintillation Properties of CeAlO₃ Crystals and Phase-Separated CeAlO₃/CeAl₁₁O₁₈ Metamaterials

• Main Authors: Oleg Sidletskiy, Pavlo Arhipov, Serhii Tkachenko, Iaroslav Gerasymov, Georgy Trushkovsky, Tetyana Zorenko, Yuriy Zorenko, Pavel Mateychenko, Anna Puzan, Wojciech Gieszczyk, Pawel Bilski
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2019-06-01
• Series: Crystals
• Subjects: CeAlO₃ crystals; CeAlO₃/CeAl₁₁O₁₈ metamaterials; luminescence; scintillators
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4352/9/6/296
• ISSN: 2073-4352

This work is dedicated to the growth process and investigation of luminescent and scintillation properties of CeAlO₃ single crystals and CeAlO₃/CeAl₁₁O₁₈ metamaterials under e-beam and α-particles excitation. It has been shown that cathodoluminescence and radioluminescence spectra of CeAlO₃ crystals contain two bands, peaking at 440 and 500 nm, and caused by the Ce³⁺ 5d−4f transitions into CeAl₁₁O₁₈ phase, which is present in these crystals as an admixture. Under 270 nm ultraviolet (UV) light excitation, a CeAlO₃ crystal possesses complicated non-exponential luminescence decay, with the average decay time of 16 ns. The light yield of CeAlO₃ crystals under α-particle excitation is about 16% and 12%, in respect to the standard Bi₄Ge₃O₁₂ (BGO) crystal and Y₃Al₅O₁₂:Ce (YAG:Ce) single crystalline film samples, respectively. The CeAlO₃ scintillation decay is quite fast, with the decay time value t_1/e in the 54−56 ns range.