Comparative study of ceramic and single crystal Ce:GAGG scintillator

• Optical and scintillation properties of ceramic and single crystal Ce-doped GAGG were compared.
• Ceramic and crystal Ce:GAGG both showed quantum yield of 89%.
• Ceramic Ce:GAGG exhibited the light yield of 70 000 ph/MeV under γ-ray excitation.
• At present, ceramic GAGG is the brightest oxide scintillator.

Recent study revealed that single crystal Ce:Gd3(Al,Ga)5O12 (Ce:GAGG) showed good scintillation response under γ-ray exposure. We discover here that ceramic Ce:GAGG scintillator exhibited better performance than the single crystal counterpart. We developed Ce 1% doped ceramic and single crystal GAGG scintillators with 1 mm thick and compared their properties. In radioluminescence spectra, they showed intense emission peaking at 530 nm due to Ce3+ 5d–4f transition. The 137Cs γ-ray induced light yields of ceramic and single crystal resulted 70 000 ph/MeV and 46 000 ph/MeV with primary decay times of 165 and 143 ns, respectively. At present, the observed light yield was the brightest in oxide scintillators.