抄録
The application fields of scintillators, e.g. medicine, security, high energy physics, etc, are in continuous expansion. Consequently, the interest for new scintillation materials with new and improved properties is emerging. Oxides have been widely investigated, instead, the studies on fluorides are few and mainly related to CeF3 grown by the Bridgman technique.Here we present a pioneer study on the growth and scintillation properties of simple rare-earth fluorides. High quality single crystals of 1 inch in diameter could be grown by a modified Czocharlski technique, developed in the recent years especially for the fluoride growth. PrF3 exhibits a single sharp emission at about 400 nm, with a light yield comparable to that of BGO and a decay time of 510 ns. This result, which contrasts with the typically observed blue-green-red emissions in the case of Pr-doped oxides, indicates the potential of PrF3 as a new scintillating material.
