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Crystals
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Crystals, Films and Nanocomposite Scintillators Volume III
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Crystals, Films and Nanocomposite Scintillators Volume III

A special issue of Crystals (ISSN 2073-4352). This special issue belongs to the section "Inorganic Crystalline Materials".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 October 2024) | Viewed by 2952

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Yuriy Zorenko

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Physics, Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Bydgoszcz, Poland
Interests: scintillators; development of luminescent materials in the single crystalline and crystals forms; energy transfer proceses in scintillators; defects and dopant as emission and trapping centers in dielectrics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Scintillator materials are known as the transformers of high-energy photons and particles (X- or ɣ-rays, electrons, protons, neutrons, alfa, or heavy ions) into an ultraviolet–visible light.

Over the last 30 years, considerable effort has been made to create new scintillation materials for high-energy physics and advanced imaging systems for application in industry, science, biology, and medicine. The majority of newly developed single-crystal scintillators have been based on Ce3+- and Pr3+-doped materials due to their fast scintillation response (up to 100 ns) and high light yield, connected with the 5d–4f radiative transitions of these ions.

Usually, the best scintillation figure of merit is provided by single-crystal scintillators; however, not all efficient materials can be grown in the form of bulk crystals with sufficiently large dimensions and prices for practical applications.  For this reason, optical ceramics have been used as an alternative to crystals to provide bulk optical elements in cases where crystals cannot be grown, or when transparent ceramics show superior properties in comparison with crystals. The technology of using optical ceramics as solid-state lasers has progressed within the last three decades. Fast optical ceramics, based on Ce- and Pr-doped YAG and LuAG, have been developed as well. However, their applications demand a higher quality of scintillation ceramic in comparison with laser ceramics because the point defects can seriously limit the material performance due to the introduction of trapping levels in the material band gap.

New X-ray-based imaging applications with a submicrometre spatial resolution have required the development of thin-film scintillators with micrometre-scale thicknesses. Liquid-phase epitaxy technology is often used for the growth of high-quality single-crystalline films of different optical materials. The limitation of the performance of film scintillators within this technology is connected to film–substrate misfits and the influence of flux-related impurities on the scintillation properties.

Modern medical therapies, such as photodynamic therapy, strongly demand the development of nanopowder scintillators. Lanthanide-doped inorganic nanopowders have also been considered for future biomedical applications as luminescent nanoprobes. Nowadays, nanocomposite materials have also become a hot topic in the field of scintillators, with the aim of preparing bulk transparent materials where scintillation characteristics are defined by a nano-phase dispersed in a suitable host.

In this Special Issue, we aim to introduce and describe in more detail the current status, in terms of R&D, of bulk, ceramic, film, and nanocomposite scintillators that are prepared using different technological methods. Both technological descriptions and the various characterization aspects of scintillation materials, together with application aspects in the abovementioned fields, will be provided.

Prof. Dr. Yuriy Zorenko
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Crystals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2100 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • scintillators
  • crystals, films, ceramics, and nanopowders
  • melt growth, liquid phase epitaxy, and solid-state reactions
  • luminescence
  • energy transfer processes
  • defects and dopants

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 5699 KiB  
Article
Novel Detector Configurations in Cone-Beam CT Systems: A Simulation Study
by Evangelia Karali, Christos Michail, George Fountos, Nektarios Kalyvas and Ioannis Valais
Crystals 2024, 14(5), 416; https://doi.org/10.3390/cryst14050416 - 29 Apr 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1403
Abstract
Cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) has emerged in recent years as an adequate alternative to mammography and tomosynthesis due to the several advantages over traditional mammography, including its ability to provide 3D images, its reduced radiation dose, and its ability to image dense breasts [...] Read more.
Cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) has emerged in recent years as an adequate alternative to mammography and tomosynthesis due to the several advantages over traditional mammography, including its ability to provide 3D images, its reduced radiation dose, and its ability to image dense breasts more effectively and conduct more effective breast compressions, etc. Furthermore, CBCT is capable of providing images with high sensitivity and specificity, allowing a more accurate evaluation, even of dense breasts, where mammography and tomosynthesis may lead to a false diagnosis. Clinical and experimental CBCT systems rely on cesium iodine (CsI:Tl) scintillators for X-ray energy conversion. This study comprises an investigation among different novel CBCT detector technologies, consisting either of scintillators (BGO, LSO:Ce, LYSO:Ce, LuAG:Ce, CaF2:Eu, LaBr3:Ce) or semiconductors (Silicon, CZT) in order to define the optimum detector design for a future experimental setup, dedicated to breast imaging. For this purpose, a micro-CBCT system was adapted, using GATE v9.2.1, consisting of the aforementioned various detection schemes. Two phantom configurations were selected: (a) an aluminum capillary positioned at the center of the field of view in order to calculate the system’s spatial resolution and (b) a breast phantom consisting of spheres of different materials, such that their characteristics are close to the breast composition. Breast phantom contrast-to-noise ratios (CNRs) were extracted from the phantom’s tomographic images. The images were reconstructed with filtered back projection (FBP) and ordered subsets expectation-maximization (OSEM) algorithms. The semiconductors acted satisfactorily in low-density matter, while LYSO:Ce, LaBr3:Ce, and LuAG:Ce presented adequate CNRs for all the different spheres’ densities. The energy converters that are presented in this study were evaluated for their performance against the standard CsI:Tl crystal. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Crystals, Films and Nanocomposite Scintillators Volume III)
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12 pages, 2464 KiB  
Article
Regularities of Manganese Charge State Formation and Luminescent Properties of Mn-Doped Al2O3, YAlO3, and Y3Al5O12 Single Crystalline Films
by Artur Majewski-Napierkowski, Vitaliy Gorbenko, Tatiana Zorenko, Sandra Witkiewicz-Łukaszek and Yuriy Zorenko
Crystals 2023, 13(10), 1481; https://doi.org/10.3390/cryst13101481 - 11 Oct 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1125
Abstract
In this work, three sets of single crystalline films (SCF) of Al2O3:Mn sapphire, YAlO3:Mn perovskite (YAP:Mn), and Y3Al5O12:Mn garnet (YAG:Mn), with a nominal Mn content of 0.1%, 1%, and 10 atomic [...] Read more.
In this work, three sets of single crystalline films (SCF) of Al2O3:Mn sapphire, YAlO3:Mn perovskite (YAP:Mn), and Y3Al5O12:Mn garnet (YAG:Mn), with a nominal Mn content of 0.1%, 1%, and 10 atomic percent (at.%) in the melt-solutions, were crystallized by the liquid phase epitaxy (LPE) method onto sapphire, YAP and YAG substrates, respectively. We have also calculated the average segregation coefficient of Mn ions for Al2O3:Mn, YAP:Mn and YAG:Mn SCFs with Mn content in the melt-solution in the 0.1–10% concentration range, which was equal to 0.1, 0.14 and 0.2, respectively. The main goal of the conducted research was the spectroscopic determination of the preferable valence states of manganese ions which were realized in the SCFs of sapphire, perovskite and garnet depending on the Mn content. For this purpose, the absorption, cathodoluminescence (CL), photoluminescence (PL) emission/excitation spectra and PL decay kinetics of Al2O3:Mn, YAP:Mn and YAG:Mn SCFs with different Mn concentrations were studied. Based on the CL and PL spectra, we showed that Mn ions, depending on the Mn content in the melt-solution, are incorporated in Al2O3:Mn, YAP:Mn and YAG:Mn SCFs in the different charged states and are located in the different crystallographic positions of the mentioned oxide lattices. We have observed the presence of the luminescence of Mn4+, Mn3+ and Mn2+ valence states of manganese ions in CL spectra in all SCFs under study with 0.1 and 1% Mn concentrations. Namely, the Mn4+ ion valence state with the main sharp emission bands peaked at 642 and 672 nm, related to the 2E → 4A2 transitions, was found in the luminescence spectra of the all studied Al2O3:Mn SCFs. The luminescence of the Mn2+ valence state was found only in YAP:Mn and YAG:Mn SCFs, grown from melt solution with 1% Mn content, in the emission bands peaked at 525 and 560 nm, respectively, related to the 4T1 → 6A1 transitions. The PL and CL spectra of YAP:Mn and YAG:Mn SCFs with the Mn content in the 0.1–1% range show that the main valence state of manganese ions in these films is Mn3+ with the main emission bands peaking at 655 and 608 nm, respectively, related to the 1T2 → 5E transitions. Meanwhile, higher than 1% Mn content in the melt solution causes a strong concentration quenching of luminescence of all Mn centers in Al2O3:Mn, YAP:Mn and YAG:Mn SCFs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Crystals, Films and Nanocomposite Scintillators Volume III)
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