High-efficiency narrow-band green-emitting Tb-doped fluorosilicate glass for X-ray detectors

High-efficiency scintillators for radiation detections are urgently desired in many fields such as nondestructive inspection, medical imaging, and space exploration. Nowadays, commercial scintillators still face challenges of costly and time-consuming fabrication techniques and restricted size. Here, we present a high-efficient narrow-band green-emitting Tb ³⁺ -doped fluorosilicate (SF) glass scintillator with manufacturing of large size and low cost. Its emission (530–565 nm, ∼58% photons of total) highly superimposes with the peak sensitivity wavelength (∼550 nm) of silicon photomultipliers or charge-coupled device detectors. Moreover, owing to the particularly designed glass matrix, the photoluminescence (PL) quantum yield (QY) reaches up to 83%, which is high compared with other reported Tb ³⁺-doped scintillators. The high PLQY combined with negligible self-absorption (400–800 nm) enables the high scintillation relative integral area (171% relative to commercial Bi ₄Ge ₃O ₁₂ single crystal). Therefore, the Tb ³⁺-doped SF glass will be one of the promising alternatives for scintillator-based indirect-type X-ray detectors.