Luminescence and scintillation properties of advanced Lu3Al5O12:Pr3+ single crystal scintillators

• Scintillation properties of a new generation of LuAG:Pr crystals have been studied.
• Dependences of yield on sample height and shaping time have been examined.
• Intrinsic yield of 28000 ph/MeV has been determined.
• Photofraction and mass attenuation at 662 keV have been evaluated.

In this paper we present the luminescence and scintillation properties of Lu3Al5O12:Pr (LuAG:Pr) single crystals with Pr3+ concentration of 0.13 wt %, grown by the Czochralski method. The light yield and energy resolution were measured under 662 keV γ-ray excitation. The dominant emission band peaking at 310 nm with a shoulder at 370 nm was observed in the photoluminescence spectrum. High light yield of 24,500 ph/MeV and an energy resolution of 5.3 % were obtained for a 6 × 6 × 2 mm3 LuAG:Pr sample. Light yield dependence on sample height and shaping time was measured. The estimated photofraction in pulse height spectrum and total mass attenuation coefficient at 662 keV γ-rays were also determined and compared with the theoretical ones calculated using the WinXCom program.