Crystal growth and scintillation characteristics of the Nd 3+ doped LiLuF 4 single crystals

• Published in: Optical materials Vol. 33; no. 6; pp. 924 - 927
• Main Authors: Fukuda, Kentaro, Kawaguchi, Noriaki, Ishizu, Sumito, Nagami, Tomohito, Suyama, Toshihisa, Yanagida, Takayuki, Yokota, Yuui, Nikl, Martin, Yoshikawa, Akira
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 2011
• Subjects: Crystal growth from the melt; Fluoride; Nd 3+ 5d–4f; Scintillator; Single crystal; VUV; Scintillator; Fluoride; VUV; Nd 3+ 5d–4f; Single crystal; Crystal growth from the melt
• ISSN: 0925-3467; 1873-1252
• DOI: 10.1016/j.optmat.2010.10.053

► The large size Nd:LiLuF 4 single crystals was grown for scintillator application. ► The grown crystal has shown excellent crystal quality. ► Nd:LiLuF 4 performed significant light yield. Sixty millimeter diameter single crystal of Nd 3+ doped LiLuF 4 was successfully grown by the Czochralski technique. No remarkable absorption due to unfavorable impurities was observed from optical absorption measurements in the vacuum ultra-violet spectral region. The high crystallinity and homogeneous luminescence characteristics were found from X-ray rocking curve and cathode-ray luminescence respectively. X-ray excited luminescence spectrum was measured and the significant 4f 25d–4f 3 luminescence at 182 nm was observed in the grown crystal. The pulse height spectrum was taken upon γ-ray irradiation. As a result, the grown crystals demonstrated sufficient response to the γ-ray showing the light yield of 420 ± 30 photons/MeV. The decay curve under α-ray irradiation was also investigated and described by two component decay kinetics which consists of the decay constants of 34 and 450 ns.