Strontium and barium iodide high light yield scintillators

Europium-doped strontium and barium iodide are found to be readily growable by the Bridgman method and to produce high scintillation light yields. SrI2(Eu) emits into the Eu(2+) band, centered at 435 nm, with a decay time of 1.2 mu s and a light yield of similar to 90 00 photons/MeV. It offers energy resolution better than 4% full width at half maximum at 662 keV, and exhibits excellent light yield proportionality. BaI(2)(Eu) produces >30 000 photons/MeV into the Eu(2+) band at 420 nm (<1 mu s decay). An additional broad impurity-mediated recombination band is present at 550 nm (>3 mu s decay), unless high-purity feedstock is used. (c) 2008 American Institute of Physics.