Because of their luminescent properties, phosphors make excellent candidates for radiation detectors. The materials are inclined to luminesce when exposed to a variety of radiation sources including gammas, protons, alphas and so forth. However, the vast majority of research and use of phosphors as radiation sensors are as scintillators—when luminescence spontaneously occurs due to the incident radiation. In this case, incident radiation promotes electrons to excited levels. The excited electrons subsequently decay to produce photons that can be detected. The luminescence is therefore a result of ionizing radiation.
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