Kinetic and scintillation characteristics of CsI(Na) crystals grown under melt mixing

• Published in: Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section B, Beam interactions with materials and atoms Beam interactions with materials and atoms, 1999-10, Vol.159 (1-2), p.111-115
• Main Authors: Goriletsky, V.I, Grinyov, B.V, Panova, A.M, Shakhova, K.V, Vinograd, E.L, Korsunov, S.P
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Concentration; Decay time; Energy resolution; Homogeneous distribution of activator; Scintillation yield
• ISSN: 0168-583X; 1872-9584
• DOI: 10.1016/S0168-583X(99)00537-6

The effect of activator concentration on the γ-scintillation pulse shape, the light yield upon excitation with γ-rays and α-particles as well as the energy resolution, has been investigated for CsI(Na) crystals. The crystals were grown with a homogeneous activator distribution. Based on the concentration dependence of the α-particle light yield the number of activator emission centres in the crystals has been concluded to increase with concentration up to 2.5×10−2 mol% of NaI. Therefore, the maximum yield of γ-scintillation at ≈9×10−3 mol% NaI is due to a sufficient number of emission centres at the given ionization density. It is shown that the decay time can be reduced from 630 to 570 ns without change of the crystal spectrometric quality, and that it may be further reduced, in principle, down to values close to the decay time for intracenter excitation.