Comparison of the optical and scintillation properties of Gd2O2S: Pr, Ce ceramics fabricated by hot pressing and pressureless sintering

• Gd2O2S: Pr, Ce ceramics were fabricated by hot pressing and pressureless sintering.
• Samples sintered by two methods show the same light yield value.
• Pressureless sintering prefers to provide Gd2O2S: Pr, Ce ceramics with shorter afterglow due to the smaller number of traps.

Gd2O2S: Pr, Ce ceramics were successfully fabricated by hot pressing (HP) and pressureless sintering. Absorption spectra, phase composition and microstructure of Gd2O2S: Pr, Ce ceramics are presented. The intensity of X-ray excited luminescence (XEL) and photoluminescence (PL) are compared, respectively. The sample fabricated by pressureless sintering has almost the identical position of photopeak and shorter afterglow compared with the one fabricated by the hot pressing. The different afterglow of samples fabricated by different methods can be attributed to the presence of different quantity of electronic traps which is illustrated by the Thermoluminescence (TL) study.