Comparative study of intrinsic luminescence in undoped transparent ceramic and single crystal garnet scintillators

Scintillation properties associated with intrinsic lattice defects of undoped Y(3)A(5)O(12) (YAG) and Lu(3)A(5)O(12) (LuAG) transparent ceramics and single crystals are compared. The ceramics excited with X-ray demonstrated relatively low emission intensity when compared with that of the single crystals. Decay times of the ceramics and the single crystals were similar. These parameters were approximately 430 ns (YAG ceramic), 460 ns (YAG single crystal), 30 ns and 1090 ns (LuAG ceramic), and 25 ns and 970 ns (LuAG single crystal). According to the pulse height spectra recorded under Cs-137 gamma-ray irradiation, the scintillation light yield of the both ceramics were about 2950 +/- 290 ph/MeV. However, the single crystals had greater kight yield of about about 14,300 +/- 1430 ph/MeV for YAG and 8350 +/- 830 ph/MeV for LuAG. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.