Organic–inorganic hybrid perovskite scintillators for mixed field radiation detection

Sensitive and fast detection of neutrons and gamma rays is vital for homeland security,high-energy physics,and proton therapy.Fast-neutron detectors rely on light organic scintillators,andγ-ray detectors use heavy inorganic scintillators and semiconductors.Efficient mixed-field detection using a single material is highly challenging due to their contradictory requirements.Here we report hybrid perovskites(C_(8)H_(12)N)_(2)Pb(Br_(0.95)Cl_(0.05))_(4)that combine light organic cations and heavy inorganic skeletons at a molecular level to achieve unprecedented performance for mixed-field radiation detection.High neutron absorption due to a high density of hydrogen,strong radiative recombination within the highly confined[PbX_(6)]^(4-)layer,and sub-nanometer distance between absorption sites and radiative centers,enable a light yield of 41000 photons/MeV,detection pulse width of 2.97 ns and extraordinary linearity response toward both fast neutrons andγ-rays,outperforming commonly used fast-neutron scintillators.Neutron energy spectrum,time-of-flight based fast-neutron/γ-ray discrimination and neutron yield monitoring were all successfully achieved using(C_(8)H_(12)N)_(2)Pb(Br_(0.95)Cl_(0.05))_(4)detectors.We further demonstrate the monitoring of reaction kinetics and total power of a nuclear fusion reaction.We envision that molecular hybridized scintillators open a new avenue for mixed-field radiation detection and imaging.