Effects of Y concentration on luminescence properties of PbWO4 single crystals

The effects of Y3+ doping at different concentration on the luminescnece properties of PbWO4 crystals have been investigated by means of Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectrum, optical transmission, thermoluminescence (TL), X-ray excited luminescence (XEL), photoluminescence (PL) under excitation of UV light and light yield measurements. The series PbWO4:Y crystal samples were grown by modified Bridgman method and the concentration of Y3+ in the melt was in the range of 0–1.0 mol%. The slight blue-shift and evident red-shift of the absorption edge in PbWO4 crystal were observed at low and heavy doping concentration, respectively. TL peaks in the range of from room temperature to 250 °C disappeared after the doping with Y3+. With the increase of doping concentration, the luminescence intensity in the XEL and PL spectra was found to decrease accordingly, especially in the case of heavy doping. The measuring results demonstrate that Y3+ doping concentration below 100 ppm in the crystal seems to be the best for optimizing the optical and scintillation properties of the material. The mechanism of Y3+ doping concentration influence on luminescence was also discussed in this paper.