Metal Halide Scintillators with Fast and Self-Absorption-Free Defect-Bound Excitonic Radioluminescence for Dynamic X-Ray Imaging

Scintillators for radiation detection are of great significance in medical imaging, security, and nondestructive inspection. The current challenge for scintillators is to simultaneously achieve high scintillation light yield, fast radioluminescence, simple film fabrication, large X-ray attenuation efficiency as well as stable and nontoxic compositions; no previous scintillators fulfill all the above requirements. Here, metal halide Rb2AgBr3, possessing defect-bound excitonic radioluminescence, is shown as efficient and fast scintillators. This nontoxic and stable scintillator emits from excitons bound to neutral bromine vacancies, enjoying an efficient and spin-allowed fast emission with minimized self-absorption. Rb2AgBr3 thus has a high light yield (25 600 photons MeV-1), fast scintillation decay time (5.31 ns), and a record value of light yield versus decay time (4821 photons MeV-1 ns(-1)). The close-space sublimation method is developed for fast and scalable fabrication of oriented Rb2AgBr3 films. The scintillator film is further integrated with commercial flat-panel imagers, and the spatial resolution reaches 10.2 line pairs per millimeter at the modulation transfer function of 0.2, doubling the resolution of conventional CsI:Tl flat-panel detectors. The dynamic X-ray imaging and its use to real-time monitoring of bone movement without ghosting effect is also demonstrated.

Automated summary

Rb2AgBr3, an efficient and fast scintillator with high light yield and fast scintillation decay time, has been developed. The close-space sublimation method allows for fast fabrication of oriented Rb2AgBr3 films. Integrated with commercial flat-panel imagers, Rb2AgBr3 film achieves high spatial resolution, showing potential for dynamic X-ray imaging.