Basic properties of ceramic Pr:LuAG scintillator

The present work describes the first report of Pr³⁺ doped transparent ceramic Lu3Al5O12 (Pr:LuAG) scintillator. Transparent ceramic Pr 0.25 mol% doped LuAG was developed by a sintering method, and it achieved 70% transparency at wavelength longer than 310 nm. The emission wavelength of the ceramic Pr:LuAG shifts to the longer wavelength than that of the single crystalline counterpart. The light yield was measured by an irradiation of ¹³⁷Cs, and it showed almost the half times as that of the single crystalline counterpart. The energy resolution at 662 keV was also about half worse than that of the single crystalline one, around 10% at few hundreds keV. The decay time shows a big difference with the single crystalline one, because its slower component due to a defect disappear in the ceramic one.