Spark Plasma Sintering of Ce~(3+):Lu_2SiO_5 Scintillation Ceramics and Its Luminescent Characteristics

Cerium-doped lutetium orthosilicate(Ce:Lu2SiO5,LSO) scintillation ceramics were fabricated by using spark plasma sintering(SPS) technique starting from synthesized submicron polycrystalline LSO luminescent pow-der.Polycrystalline translucent LSO ceramics were rapidly densified under optimized sintering conditions of 1350℃/5min.The relative density of obtained translucent LSO ceramic reached 99.5% theoretically.Under excita-tion of 360nm,a broad emission peak was detected in the wavelength range of 380nm to 600nm.The relative emis-sion intensity of obtained LSO ceramic attained 75% of LSO single crystal scintillator.The luminescent decay time was measured to be only 9.67ns.The good luminescent characteristics make LSO polycrystalline ceramic a prom-ising scintillator candidate for radiation detection in future.