Nonlinear luminescence response of CaF2:Eu and YAlO3:Ce to single-ion excitation

Journal Article · Tue Jan 21 00:00:00 EST 2014 · Journal of Applied Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4861152· OSTI ID:1115368

Liu, Peng ^[1]; Zhang, Yanwen ^[2]; Xiao, Haiyan ^[3]; Xiang, Xia ^[4]; Wang, Xuelin ^[5]; Weber, William J. ^[2]

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1. Department of Materials Science & Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996, USA; School of Physics, Key Laboratory of Particle Physics & Particle Irradiation (MOE), Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China
2. Department of Materials Science & Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996, USA; Materials Science & Technology Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA
3. Department of Materials Science & Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996, USA
4. School of Physical Electronics, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, China
5. School of Physics, Key Laboratory of Particle Physics & Particle Irradiation (MOE), Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China

Pulse-height of CaF2:Eu and YAlO3:Ce scintillators to single H+, He+ and O3+ ions are measured over a continuous energy range using a time-of-flight (TOF) - scintillator - photoelectric multiplier tube (PMT) apparatus. A nonlinear response of the scintillators under ionizing ion irradiation is quantitatively evaluated by considering energy partitioning process. The results show that, in a differential energy deposition region with negligible displacement damage, the low, medium and high excitation energy deposition density (Dexci) produced by H+, He+ and O3+ ions irradiation, respectively, have significantly different impacts on the response characteristics of these two benchmark scintillators. For CaF2:Eu, the scintillation efficiency under ion irradiation monotonically decreases with increasing excitation-energy density. In contrast, the response efficiency of YAlO3:Ce scintillation initially increases with excitation-energy density at low excitation-energy densities, goes through a maximum, and then decreases with further increasing excitation-energy density. The fundamental mechanism causing these different response behaviours in the scintillators is based on the competition between the scintillation response and the nonradiative quenching process under different excitation densities, which is also the main origin of the nonlinear response of scintillators to irradiation.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• DOE Contract Number: DE-AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1115368
• Journal Information: Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 115, Issue 3; ISSN 0021-8979
• Publisher: American Institute of Physics (AIP)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English