Scintillation Characteristics of CsI Crystal Doped Br under Gamma and Alpha Particles Excitation

Maria da Conceição Costa Pereira, Tufic Madi Filho

Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares-IPEN/CNEN-SP, S?o Paulo, Brazil.

DOI: 10.4236/msa.2014.56042                

Abstract

Inorganic scintillators play an important role in detection and spectroscopy of gamma, X-rays and alpha particles as well as neutrons and charged particles. Scintillation crystals based on cesium iodide (CsI) are matters with relatively low hygroscopicity, high atomic number, easy handling and low cost, characteristics that favor their use as radiation detectors. In this work, pure CsI crystal and bromine doped CsI crystals were grown using the Bridgman technique. The concentration of the bromine doping element (Br) was studied in the range of 1.5 × 10^-1 M to 10^-2 M. The distribution of the doping element in the crystalline volume was determined by neutron activation. The result obtained with neutron activation analysis (NAA) has found that the mean values of Br found in grown crystals are consistent with those introduced in salt CsI, showing the incorporation of Br in the matrix structure of CsI. The optical transmittance assays were performed at a wavelength range of 110 nm to 1100 nm. Analyses were carried out to evaluate the developed scintillators, concerning alpha particles and gamma radiation.

Keywords

Crystal Growth, Scintillators, Luminescence, Radiation Detectors

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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