Advantages and Problems of Nanocrystalline Scintillators

Our experiments with nanocrystalline scintillating rare earth oxides and rare earth fluorides have shown that in some cases nanoscopic dimensions provide essential improvement of the most important scintillation parameters: light yield, kinetics of scintillations, radiation hardness, etc. We found that in the range from 20 to 100-nm of the oxide and fluoride particles there are 3 types of layered structures: with expanded exterior layer, with changed phase structure, and with changed chemical composition. These layered structures can strongly influence scintillation parameters: cause an increase or decrease in the light yield, vary scintillation kinetics, modify radiation hardness, etc. Control of dimensions and structures of nanoscintillators can be used for significant modifications of parameters of radiation detectors (radical acceleration of kinetics, enhancement of light yield, increase in radiation hardness, etc.). Radiation detectors based on nanoscintillators have promising prospects for applications in new generations of devices for medical diagnostics, security inspection, radiation monitoring of nuclear reactors.