Ionoluminescence analysis of glass scintillators and application to single-ion-hit real-time detection

In this paper, we propose and test a real-time detection system for single-ion hits using mega-electronvolt (MeV)-heavy ions. The system was constructed using G2000 and G9 glass scintillators, as well as an electron-multiplying charge-coupled device (EMCCD) camera combined with an inverted microscope with a 10× objective lens. Commercially available G2000 and G9 glass scintillators, which have been reported to exhibit strong photoluminescence at 489, 543, 585, and 622 nm as a result of the Tb3+ f-f transition, were employed for highly accurate ionized particle detection. The EMCCD camera had a resolution of 512 × 512 pixels, each with a size of 16 μm × 16 μm, and a maximum linear gain of 8 × 105 electrons. For 260-MeV Ne, 3 ion hits/s were detected by our system. The intensity of the ionoluminescence (IL) peak induced by the heavy ions was 140 times the noise intensity. In contrast, the luminous diameter at the full width at half maximum (FWHM) in both the horizontal and vertical directions was calculated to be approximately 4.5 μm. These results suggest that our detection system can accurately detect single-ion hits with a diameter of the order of 1 μm.