Ce3+-doped oxyfluoride glass scintillator: optimized radioluminescence and application in X-ray imaging

Glass scintillators have attracted increasing attention for X-ray imaging because of their low cost, easy manufacturing, superb transparency, and uniformity. In this paper, oxyfluoride glass scintillators doped with Ce3+ were developed through the utilization of carbon as a reducing agent. All oxyfluoride glasses exhibit exceptional transmittance (surpassing 90% @ 550 nm). The optimal glass prepared with carbon presents excellent integrated X-ray excited luminescence (XEL) intensity. It is about 86% of that of Bi4Ge3O12, which is 2.1 times of that of glass prepared without carbon. And the spatial resolution of optimal glass for X-ray imaging can reach 18 lp·mm-1. Notably, the integrated XEL intensity of optimal sample is comparable to the best Ce3+-doped glass materials and its spatial resolution exceeds that of Ce3+-doped glass ceramics. The aforementioned results demonstrate the possible utility of Ce3+-doped glass scintillators in the field of X-ray imaging applications.