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YBa3B9O18:  A Promising Scintillation Crystal

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posted on 2007-02-07, 00:00 authored by Ming He, Xiaolong Chen, Yuping Sun, Jun Liu, Jingtai Zhao, Chengjun Duan
Single crystals of the newly discovered borate YBa3B9O18 with dimensions up to 13 × 8 × 4 mm3 were successfully grown by the Czochralski pulling method. X-ray excited luminescence measurements of the YBa3B9O18 showed a broad emission band in the wavelength range from 350 to 500 nm with a peak center at 400 nm. The light yield is about 6−7 times larger than that of PbWO4 measured at nearly the same conditions. The results show that borate can also exhibit attracting scintillation properties. A narrow temperature range for growth and drastic anisotropy of the growth rates are the main difficulties in growing large crystals. The crystal growth and properties of denser isostructural REBa3B9O18 series (RE = Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb) deserve further investigation.

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