Scintillation properties of Ti- and Zr-doped lanthanum hafnate single crystals

Abstract Undoped, Zr-doped and Ti-doped La2Hf2O7 single crystals were grown by the optical floating zone technique to evaluate the scintillation properties. The synthesized single crystals show scintillation signals with a broad peak around 450 nm. The scintillation decay curves indicate the decay time constants are in nanoseconds order. Suggested from the pulse height spectra under 241Am alpha-ray irradiation, the scintillation light yields of the undoped, Zr-doped and Ti-doped crystal samples are 270, 180 and 390 photons/MeV. From these results, Ti-doping seems to enhance the scintillation properties of a La2Hf2O7 crystal.