High-performance Silver and Copper Halide X-ray Imaging Scintillators

Scintillators are critical for high-energy radiation detection across a wide array of potential applications, from medical radiography and safety inspections all the way to space exploration. However, constrained by their current shortcomings, including high-temperature and complex fabrication, high cost, and inherent brittleness and fragility among thick films and bulk crystals, traditional scintillators are finding it difficult to meet the rising demand for cost-effective, eco-friendly, and flexible X-ray detection. Here, we describe the development of highly efficient and flexible X-ray scintillators based on films of Cu-doped Cs2AgI3, which exhibit ultrahigh X-ray sensitivity. The materials exhibit a high scintillation light yield of up to 82900 photons/MeV and a low detection limit of 77.8 nGyair/s, which is approximately 70 times lower than the dosage for a standard medical examination. Moreover, richly detailed X-ray images of biological tissue and electronic components with a high spatial resolution of 16.2 lp/mm were obtained using flexible large-area solution-processed scintillation screens. These findings demonstrate that Cu-doped Cs2AgI3 films can serve as extraordinary scintillation screens for high-performance X-ray imaging devices.