Anodic-aluminum-oxide template assisted fabrication of cesium iodide (CsI) scintillator nanowires

Real-time digital imaging of radiation is realized using scintillators, and vertically aligned scintillator structures improve the spatial resolution and detection efficiency. In this work, a cost-effective approach was developed to prepare scintillator CsI nanowires in anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) nanochannels by a mechanical injection method. The AAO walls were pre-deposited with CsI nanoparticles using CsI aqueous solution to facilitate complete filling of the nanochannels. It was observed that although CsI solidifies as dendritic structures in free space on the surface of glass slides, when it is injected into the AAO nanochannels, it solidifies as stable single wires. This mechanical injection method enables fabrication of CsI nanowires with controllable size and chemical doping levels. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.