Growth and Scintillation Properties of Gd3 (Al,Ga)5O12 :Ce Crystal.

Ce3+ doped gadolinium aluminum gallium garnet (GAGG:Ce) scintillation crystal has the advantages of high light output, high energy resolution, short decay time, no self radiation and non-deliquescence, which make it has a broad application prospect in nuclear medical imaging, security inspection and environment detection et al. This paper reported the Czochralski growth and scintillation properties of GAGG:Ce single crystal. GAGG:Ce raw material was synthesized by high temperature solid state reaction method. By means of XRD analysis, the raw material sintered at 1 500 °C for 12 h is verified to be pure GAGG phase. GAGG:Ce crystal with size of Φ50 mm x 90 mm was successfully grown by Czochralski method. The transmission spectrum, X-ray excited emission spectrum and pulse height spectrum of the crystal were tested. Results show that optical transmittance at 550 nm for the sample with thickness of 7 mm reaches as high as 81.5%. The X-ray excited emission peak central wavelength of the GAGG:Ce crystal is located at 550 nm. The light output of the GAGG:Ce crystal is 59 000 photons/ MeV and the energy resolution is 6.2%@662 keV. The decay time is 149 ns and a slow component of 748 ns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]