Scintillation and Optical Characterization of CsCu2I3 Single Crystals from 10 to 400 K

Journal Article (2023)
Author(s)

J.J. van Blaaderen (TU Delft - RST/Luminescence Materials)

Liselotte A. van den Brekel (Student TU Delft)

Karl W. Krämer (University of Bern)

Pieter Dorenbos (TU Delft - RST/Luminescence Materials)

Research Group
RST/Luminescence Materials
Copyright
© 2023 J.J. van Blaaderen, Liselotte A. van den Brekel, Karl W. Krämer, P. Dorenbos
DOI related publication
https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemmater.3c01810
More Info
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Publication Year
2023
Language
English
Copyright
© 2023 J.J. van Blaaderen, Liselotte A. van den Brekel, Karl W. Krämer, P. Dorenbos
Research Group
RST/Luminescence Materials
Issue number
22
Volume number
35
Pages (from-to)
9623-9631
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Abstract

Currently only Eu2+-based scintillators have approached the light yield needed to improve the 2% energy resolution at 662 keV of LaBr3:Ce3+,Sr2+. Their major limitation, however, is the significant self-absorption due to Eu2+. CsCu2I3 is an interesting new small band gap scintillator. It is nonhygroscopic and nontoxic, melts congruently, and has an extremely low afterglow, a density of 5.01 g/cm3, and an effective atomic number of 50.6. It shows self-trapped exciton emission at room temperature. The large Stokes shift of this emission ensures that this material is not sensitive to self-absorption, tackling one of the major problems of Eu2+-based scintillators. An avalanche photo diode, whose optimal detection efficiency matches the 570 nm mean emission wavelength of CsCu2I3, was used to measure pulse height spectra. From the latter, a light yield of 36 000 photons/MeV and energy resolution of 4.82% were obtained. The scintillation proportionality of CsCu2I3 was found to be on par with that of SrI2:Eu2+. Based on temperature-dependent emission and decay measurements, it was demonstrated that CsCu2I3 emission is already about 50% quenched at room temperature. Using temperature-dependent pulse height measurements, it is shown that the light yield can be increased up to 60 000 photons/MeV by cooling to 200 K, experimentally demonstrating the scintillation potential of CsCu2I3.