Annealing Temperature Dependence of Scintillation Properties of Ga-doped ZnO Translucent Ceramics.

Ga-doped ZnO translucent ceramics were prepared by spark plasma sintering and annealed at temperatures of 600, 650, 700, 750, and 800 °C for 24 h in air. The scintillation and optical properties of the non-annealed and annealed ZnO:Ga translucent ceramics were investigated. An absorption band from 550 to 800 nm was observed in the diffuse transmittance spectra of all the ZnO:Ga samples. In the scintillation spectra, all the ZnO:Ga samples exhibited defect-related emissions peaking at 500 nm under X-ray irradiation. Among the samples, the annealed ZnO:Ga translucent ceramic sample annealed at 700 °C showed the highest light yield (12000 photons/5.5 MeV-α). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]