Scintillation performance of the Ce3+-activated lithium phosphate glass

Ce3+ -doped phosphate glasses with intense luminescence were reported extensively for radiation detection in recent decades. With the same intension, we fabricated glasses of composition 45P(2)O(5):35Li(2)O:(10-x)GdI3:5Al(2)O(3):5Ca(2)CO(3):xCeBr(3) (x = 1, 2, 3, 5) in molar ratio using conventional technique followed by thermal annealing. The luminescence studies confirmed the energy transfer process from Gd3+ to Ce3+ -ions. The scintillation measurements of the optimized sample were performed under the excitation of alpha -particles and gamma-rays. A photopeak was detected under gamma-ray excitation at 662 keV energy from Cs-137 source. The estimated absolute light yield was 1600 +/- 200 Photons/MeV. The shortest component of the decay time under alpha -particles and gamma -ray excitations was found 32.5 +/- 0.3 ns and 39.9 +/- 0.4 ns, respectively. In the future, the glass configuration can be engineered to improve radiation detection performance.