A fast lutetium aluminum garnet scintillation ceramic with Ce3+ and Ca2+ co-dopants

A Ca2+ ions codoped LuAG:Ce scintillation ceramic was fabricated and oxygen annealing treatment was then applied to eliminate the oxygen vacancies. The Ca2+ codoped ceramic exhibits a faster decay time (42 ns) than the uncodoped one. And the light yield at 1 mu s is about 24,100 ph/MeV and reaches to 28,200 ph/MeV when using a shaping time of 12 mu s. The slow scintillation component is also suppressed. The fast-to-slow ratio calculated as LY(1 mu s)/LY(12 mu s) is approximately 85.5%. With Ca2+ ions codopant, the intensity of thermally stimulated luminescence was greatly reduced and Ce3+ ions was partially oxidized to Ce4+ ions. The significant improvement of the scintillation performance indicate that the Ca2+ ions codopoing is a good method to modify the performance of LuAG:Ce ceramic scintillator.