Issue 12, 2022

Compositional engineering of doped zero-dimensional zinc halide blue emitters for efficient X-ray scintillation

Abstract

Recently, doped ternary zinc halides with high photoluminescence quantum yields (PLQYs) have demonstrated great potential in light emitting applications. However, the composition-dependent photophysical properties of ternary zinc halides have not been investigated, and their X-ray scintillation performances remain unexplored. Here, a compositional engineering strategy for highly efficient Cu+-doped zero-dimensional A2ZnX4 (A = Rb, Cs; X = Cl, Br) blue emitters is presented. It is found that the A-site cations show a negligible influence on the emission spectra of both pure A2ZnX4 and Cu+-doped A2ZnX4, while the change of the halide anion slightly shifts the emission peak of doped A2ZnX4. The detailed photoluminescence (PL) studies indicate that the emission of Cu+-doped A2ZnX4 may come from two self-trapped exciton (STE) emission centers, namely Zn-related and Cu-related STEs. An energy transfer process from the Zn-related STE to the Cu-related STE is proposed. Based on the composition dependent photophysical and scintillation property study, Cu+-doped Cs2ZnBr4 is found to show the best scintillation performance among these zinc halides. Cu+-doped Cs2ZnBr4 shows a relatively high light yield of ∼10 000 photons MeV−1, a low detection limit of 57 nGyair s−1, and good radiation stability. The X-ray imaging results based on a doped Cs2ZnBr4 scintillation screen show a high spatial resolution of up to 9 line pairs per millimeter. These results demonstrate that the doped Cs2ZnBr4 scintillator could be a potential candidate for sensitive X-ray detection and imaging.

Graphical abstract: Compositional engineering of doped zero-dimensional zinc halide blue emitters for efficient X-ray scintillation

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Research Article
Submitted
28 Feb 2022
Accepted
24 Apr 2022
First published
25 Apr 2022

Inorg. Chem. Front., 2022,9, 2987-2996

Compositional engineering of doped zero-dimensional zinc halide blue emitters for efficient X-ray scintillation

Y. Zhou, Q. Zhou, X. Niu, Z. Yan, T. Lin, J. Xiao and X. Han, Inorg. Chem. Front., 2022, 9, 2987 DOI: 10.1039/D2QI00461E

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