Isotypic lanthanide–organic frameworks and scintillating films with colour-tunable X-ray radioluminescence for imaging applications

Abstract

Lanthanide–organic frameworks (LnOFs) have been brought into focus due to their unique structure–function relevance, and have shown good application prospects in many fields. According to the characteristics of scintillating materials, we synthesized two isomorphic LnOFs with the lanthanides terbium and europium as emission centers: Tb(bmb)₃·H₂O (LnOF-1) and Eu(bmb)₃·H₂O (LnOF-2). Tb³⁺ and Eu³⁺ were used as X-ray absorption centers, and large conjugated organic ligands were used as energy transfer bridges, which can effectively convert X-rays into visible light. LnOF-1 and LnOF-2 show good X-ray scintillation performance and anti-radiation stability. At the same time, we prepared a LnOF-1 mixed matrix scintillating film by the physical deposition method for X-ray imaging experiments, and its spatial resolution can reach 9.5 lp mm⁻¹@MTF20%. The excellent imaging application effect prospect makes the lanthanide–organic frameworks show development potential in the field of scintillating materials.