Scintillation Properties of Praseodymium Activated Single Crystals

Scintillation properties of LuAG:Pr grown by Fu- rukawa Co. Ltd., Japan, have been studied. The best crystals display light outputs up to 19000 ph/MeV and an energy resolu- tion of 4.6% at 662 keV. The scintillation yield is found to be a function of size and temperature of the sample; it can be enhanced by 40% upon heating to 450 K. Radioluminescence spectra show both - and - transitions of ions; the contribution of the latter increases with temperature. The scintillation decays are complex, with a fast decay constant of 20 ns. The presence of induces high background activity. regarded as an attractive material for a number of applications. In this paper we present a standard characterization and some results of more advanced, previously unreported studies on :Pr. Our research comprises temperature-depen- dent measurements of pulse height spectra, scintillation time profiles, and radioluminescence spectra between 78 and 600 K. We also investigate the proportionality and size dependence of scintillation yield, and the intrinsic activity of LuAG:Pr.