Luminescence properties of Nd3+ doped LiLuF4 single crystals with different dopant concentrations

Abstract Nd-doped LuLiF4 single crystalline scintillators with different Nd concentrations of 1%, 2%, 3%, and 4% were grown by the micro-pulling-down (μ-PD) method and that of Nd 1% were grown by the Czochralski method. There are some absorption bands due to Nd3+ 4f–4f transitions in the spectra and these lines correspond to the transitions from the ground state 4I9/2 to the excited states. In photo- and radio-luminescence spectra, Nd3+ 4f–4f transition peaks were observed. The photoluminescence decay time for 4D3/2 → 4I13/2 transition showed approximately 0.75 μs and slow component. The highest light yield was estimated to be 700 photon/MeV for LuLiF4:Nd2% crystal grown by the μ-PD method.