Molecular Sensitization Enabled High Performance Organic Metal Halide Hybrid Scintillator

Abstract Scintillators, one of the essential components in medical imaging and security checking devices, rely heavily on rare‐earth‐containing inorganic materials. Here, a new type of organic‐inorganic hybrid scintillators containing earth abundant elements that can be prepared via low‐temperature processes is reported. With room temperature co‐crystallization of an aggregation‐induced emission (AIE) organic halide, 4‐(4‐(diphenylamino) phenyl)‐1‐(propyl)‐pyrindin‐1ium bromide (TPA‐PBr), and a metal halide, zinc bromide (ZnBr₂), a zero‐dimensional (0D) organic metal halide hybrid (TPA‐P)₂ZnBr₄ with a yellowish‐green emission peaked at 550 nm has been developed. In this hybrid material, dramatically enhanced X‐ray scintillation of TPA‐P⁺ is achieved via the sensitization by ZnBr₄²⁻. The absolute light yield (14,700 ± 800 Photons/MeV) of (TPA‐P)₂ZnBr₄ is found to be higher than that of anthracene (≈13,500 Photons/MeV), a well‐known organic scintillator, while its X‐ray absorption is comparable to those of inorganic scintillators. With TPA‐P⁺ as an emitting center, short photoluminescence and radioluminescence decay lifetimes of 3.56 and 9.96 ns have been achieved. Taking the advantages of high X‐ray absorption of metal halides and efficient radioluminescence with short decay lifetimes of organic cations, the material design paves a new pathway to address the issues of low X‐ray absorption of organic scintillators and long decay lifetimes of inorganic scintillators simultaneously.