Luminescence and scintillation characteristics of cerium doped Gd2YGa3Al2O12 ceramics

Abstract The cerium doped Gd2YGa3Al2O12 (Ce:GYGAG) scintillation ceramics were fabricated by the solid state reaction method. The microstructure, luminescence and scintillation properties have been studied. In photoluminescence decays, the decay times of Ce:GYGAG ceramic samples are close to monoexponential. Some slower component can be found, which can be related to the local inhomogeneities of ceramic sample and self-absorption of Ce3+. Meanwhile, the Ce:GYGAG ceramics perform excellent on scintillation efficiency which is evaluated by the XEL steady-state luminescence and its fast part characterized by light yield (LY). The LY value reaches ∼45000 ph/MeV with an energy resolution of 8.67% under the γ-ray excitation. The LY0.5μs/LY6μs value of Ce:GYGAG is calculated to be 87.5% which is much superior than 42.5% in compared Ce:LuAG ceramics. In the scintillation decays, a lower content of slow components are detected in Ce:GYGAG ceramic sample comparing to the Ce:LuAG ceramics.