纳米晶复合玻璃闪烁体:机遇与挑战

Nano-Glass Composite Scintillators:Opportunities and Challenges

闪烁体作为辐射探测应用中的核心材料,在工业无损探伤、医学影像学、高能物理以及安全检查等方面发挥着重要的作用。当前闪烁体研究的机遇与挑战并存,特别是在新冠肺炎疫情进入常态化,开发高性价比的新型闪烁体并对其综合性能进行优化具有重要的现实意义。纳米晶复合玻璃(也称微晶玻璃)闪烁体结合了闪烁晶体发光效率高与闪烁玻璃制备简单和成本低廉的综合优势,成为了一种备受瞩目的明星闪烁体。本文根据发光中心不同,分别介绍以稀土离子和以具有自发光效应的纳米晶作为发光中心的纳米晶复合玻璃闪烁体,重点关注此类材料的制备、纳米晶种类与其发光性能之间的关联、以及材料在高能射线X和伽马光探测领域的潜在应用。最后,对研究中存在的问题进行了探讨并对此类材料未来发展方向做出了展望。

Scintillators as the core materials of radiation detection play an important role in industrial nondestructive testing,medical imaging,high energy physics and safety inspection,etc..The existing scintillator research faces both opportunities and challenges,especially in the context of COVID-19 pandemic period.It is of great practical significance to develop cost-effective scintillators and optimize their overall performance.The nano-glass composites(i.e.,glass ceramics)have some advantages like high emission efficiency of scintillator crystals,simple preparation and low cost as an effective star scintillator.Based on the different luminescence centers,such scintillators can be broadly divided into rare-earth element ions doped or rare-earth-free luminescent nanocrystals embedded materials.This review represented recent development on the preparation of these materials,the relationship between the types of nanocrystals and their luminescence properties,and the potential applications of these materials in high-energy X-ray and gamma-ray detection.In addition,the existing problems in the research were discussed and the future development direction of nano-glass composite scintillators was also prospected.