Semiconductor Scintillators

Semiconductor scintillators are phosphor materials, exploiting optical properties of semiconductors. In this chapter, fundamental photoluminescence and scintillation mechanisms in semiconductors are first recapped, and the examples of the reported semiconductor scintillators are subsequently summarized. Semiconductor scintillators exploiting the quantum size effect are also introduced. The chapter briefly introduces the theory of the quantum size effect and describes the photoluminescence and scintillation properties of an organic–inorganic perovskite compound, which is a representative example of semiconductor scintillators using the quantum size effect. When excitons are confined in a quantum nanostructure, the exciton binding energy and oscillator strength of excitons can be enhanced due to the quantum size effect. The enhancement in physical properties of excitons enables us to fabricate fast response scintillators, which is characterized by high light yield and fast decay time.