Electron and hole trapping in the Ce3+ and Pr3+ doped lutetium pyrosilicate scintillator crystals studied by electron paramagnetic resonance

Electron and hole trapping was studied in the Ce3+ and Pr3+ doped Lu2Si2O7 scintillation single crystals (LPS:Ce and LPS:Pr) by Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR). Detailed EPR measurements of the X-ray irradiated LPS crystals revealed that holes generated by irradiation are predominantly trapped at oxygen lattice ions creating O- centers. The same X-ray irradiation creates also electron type centers which were attributed to Lu2+ ions, where the trapped electron at Lu lattice ion is stabilized by a defect nearby, such as oxygen vacancy and Ir3+ impurity ion. Both the hole and electron centers can be thus considered as a bound small polarons, which makes the charge trapping in scintillation mechanism quite competitive. The hole O- and electron Lu2+ centers show thermal stability well above room temperature. The thermal decays of their concentrations correlate well with the appearance of the thermally stimulated luminescence glow peaks at 470-550 K. The presence of the same intrinsic traps in the Ce and Pr doped LPS crystals suggests that difference in the light yield of these crystals is an intrinsic property of the Ce3+ and Pr3+ activator centers in LPS lattice. Charge traps origin in this pyrosilicate structure and their role in scintillation mechanism is compared with the results previously described in literature in orthosilicates.