Scintillation properties of Eu-doped LiBr crystalline scintillators under X-, γ-ray, and neutron irradiation

Scintillators for neutron detection have been required as alternative detectors for 3He gas proportional counters, which are in short supply. Therefore, Eu-doped LiBr single crystals as new scintillators for neutron detection were synthesized by the vertical Bridgman method, and the photoluminescence and scintillation properties were evaluated. Under ultraviolet light and X-ray irradiation, the emission due to 4f65d1–4f7 (8S7/2) transitions of Eu2+ was observed at 440 nm. According to pulse height spectra under 252Cf neutron irradiation, 0.01% Eu-doped LiBr showed the highest light yield of 4,600 ph/n among the prepared samples, and the α/γ ratio of 0.01% Eu-doped LiBr was 0.37, which was better than that of commercial GS20 scintillator.