Scintillation Properties and Time-Resolved Spectroscopy of a Novel Scintillator Material: Ce$^{3 +}$-Activated Li$_{3}$ Lu(PO$_{4}$ )$_{2}$ Crystals

The scintillation properties and time-resolved spectroscopy results for Li
₃
Lu(PO
₄
)
₂
:Ce-a new Ce
³⁺
-activated crystalline scintillator have been determined. This material contains stoichiometric amounts of Li, and can be synthesized either with the use of
⁶
Li-enriched or
⁶
Li-depleted isotopes, for achieving thermal neutron sensitivity or x-ray/gamma-ray detection without neutron sensitivity, respectively. The scintillation of Li
₃
Lu(PO
₄
)
₂
:Ce is based on the Ce
³⁺
-activator UV (336 and 360 nm) emission, and for a 2 wt.% activation level and gamma ray photon excitation, it exhibits a light yield of about 5300 photons/MeV and a decay time constant of 24.7 ns-with no longer component observed in the time range up to 2 ¿s. Host emissions, while present for some specific excitations in the region of the bandgap energy, do not appear to play a significant role in the material's scintillation that is most probably accomplished by the consecutive capture and recombination of free band holes and electrons on the activator ions.