Intrinsic light yield and light loss coefficient of Bi4Ge3O12 single crystals

• Scintillation properties of new BGO single crystals have been studied.
• Dependence of yield on sample height has been examined.
• Intrinsic yield of 9810 ph/MeV and loss coefficient of 0.17 cm−1 have been determined.
• Photofraction and mass attenuation at 60 and 662 keV have been evaluated.

In this paper we present the scintillation properties of polished Bi4Ge3O12 (BGO) crystals grown by the Bridgman method. The light yield (LY) and energy resolution were measured using XP5200B photomultiplier. At 662 keV γ-rays, high LY of 9680 photons/MeV and good energy resolution of 8.6% were obtained for a 5 × 5 × 1 mm3 BGO sample. The intrinsic LY and light loss coefficient were evaluated. The photofraction in pulse height spectrum of 662 keV γ-rays and the mass attenuation coefficient at 59.5 and 662 keV γ-rays were also determined and compared with the theoretical ones calculated using the WinXCom program.