Key Laboratory of Radiation Physics and Technology, Ministry of Education, Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology , Sichuan University , Chengdu 610064 , P. R. China.
State Key Laboratory of Radiation Medicine and Protection, School for Radiological and Interdisciplinary Sciences (RAD-X) and Collaborative Innovation Center of Radiation Medicine of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions , Soochow University , Suzhou 215123 , P. R. China.
Inorg Chem. 2019 Feb 18;58(4):2807-2812. doi: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.8b03440. Epub 2019 Jan 31.
Traditional inorganic X-ray scintillators are designed based on several representative metal ions (e.g., Tl, Pb, Bi) with highly emissive nature and high atomic number aiming at the outstanding radiation stopping power. The combination of these two features gives rise to a high energy conversion efficiency from X-ray to visible emission, which is a prerequisite for an ideal scintillator and is currently one of the major limits for the further development of this field. Inspired by our recent observation on the intrinsic scintillating phenomenon in the heaviest naturally occurring element uranium, we report here a family of inorganic scintillators through combination of uranyl ions with diverse oxoanion groups (i.e., borate, phosphate, molybdate, germanate, etc.). NaUO(MoO)·(HO) (UMO) is selected as a prototype of a uranyl-bearing inorganic scintillator, to show its intrinsic advantages in the X-ray excited luminescence (XEL), strong X-ray attenuation coefficient (XAC), reduced afterglow, and decent radiation stability, as compared with one of the most important commercial inorganic scintillators CsI:Tl.
传统的无机 X 射线闪烁体是基于几种具有高发光性和高原子序数的代表性金属离子（如 Tl、Pb、Bi）设计的，旨在实现优异的辐射阻止能力。这两个特性的结合使得 X 射线到可见光发射的能量转换效率很高，这是理想闪烁体的前提条件，也是该领域进一步发展的主要限制之一。受我们最近在最重天然元素铀中发现的固有闪烁现象的启发，我们通过将铀酰离子与各种含氧阴离子基团（如硼酸盐、磷酸盐、钼酸盐、锗酸盐等）组合，报告了一类无机闪烁体。NaUO(MoO)·(HO) (UMO) 被选为含铀无机闪烁体的原型，以显示其在 X 射线激发发光（XEL）、强 X 射线衰减系数（XAC）、减少余辉和良好的辐射稳定性方面的固有优势，与最重要的商业无机闪烁体之一 CsI:Tl 相比。
