Cerium Doping Double Perovskite Scintillator for Sensitive X-ray Detection and Imaging.

Scintillators are widely used for nondestructive testing, nuclear medicine image, space exploration and security inspection in the fields of radiation detectors. Recently, lead halide perovskite scintillation crystals have been brought into focus due to their high effective atomic number, fast scintillation decay time, strong luminous efficiency and tunable band gap. However, their application is limited by lead toxicity. Here we report that the Ce-doped to increase sensitivity in lead-free double perovskite crystals (Cs 2 NaTbCl 6 ) for X-ray detection and imaging. The introduction of Ce ion can be used as sensitizer to improve the radioluminescence of the crystals. The light output of Ce:Cs 2 NaTbCl 6 crystals is about 52153 ph/MeV, which is 25% higher than that of un-doped crystal. The X-ray sensitivity is significantly enhanced. And based on our scintillation film X-ray detector with a detection limit of 30 nGy·s -1 , which is about 1/183 of the typical medical imaging dose. Ours scintillating film has an excellent ability of imaging with spatial resolution of up to 10 lp/mm. The research shows that Ce:Cs 2 NaTbCl 6 perovskite crystals scintillators as promising materials for X-ray imaging application.