Crystal growth and scintillation properties of Ce3+-doped KGd2Cl7

Abstract In this work, we report the crystal growth of KGd 2 Cl 7 :Ce via the vertical gradient freeze method. Various Ce concentrations from 0.5 to 10 at% have been tested to study the effect of dopant concentration on scintillation performance. The KGd 2 Cl 7 :Ce crystals have demonstrated good properties for gamma-ray and thermal neutron detection. Scintillation light yield of ∼30,000 ph/MeV and principal scintillation decay of 50 ns were measured for KGd 2 Cl 7 :Ce 3%. The crystals exhibited layered structure with cleavage planes.