Fabrication and Luminescent Properties of Translucent Ce~(3＋):Lu_2SiO_5 Ceramics by Spark Plasma Sintering

摘要

The spark plasma sintering (SPS) technique was employed to investigate the fabrication of cerium-doped lutetium orthosilicate (Ce:Lu_2SiO_5, LSO) polycrystalline scintillation ceramics starting from nanosized Ce:LSO powders synthesized by sol-gel processing. Fully-densed polycrystalline Ce:LSO ceramics with fine grains were fabricated on optimal sintering conditions of 1350°C for 5 min under pressure of 50 MPa. Translucent monolithic Ce:LSO ceramic sample was obtained with excellent luminescent characteristics after being annealed in air at 1000°C for 15 hrs. Under 360 nm UV excitation, a broad emission peak centered at 425 nm was detected for Ce:LSO ceramic, with a short decay time of only 9.67 ns. The luminescence intensity of annealed sample (doped by 0.5 mol% Ce~(3＋)) is 3 times greater than that of BGO crystal under X-ray excitation. The good luminescent characteristics make Ce:LSO polycrystalline ceramics a promising scintillator candidate with high performance for radiation detection in future.