Luminescence and scintillation kinetics of the Pr3+ doped Lu2Si2O7 single crystal

►The Pr-doped complex oxide scintillators became a hot topic especially after the Pr-doped Lu3Al5O12 (LuAG) was introduced in 2005.►While they provide faster-than-Ce3+ scintillation response, even higher scintillation efficiency was noted with respect to Ce-doped equivalent hosts in some cases.►At the same time, the co-existence of the 5d and 4f excited state levels make the excited state dynamics of the Pr3+ center more complicated.►We address the problem of thermal ionization of the 5d excited state of the Pr3+ center in the Lu2Si2O7 host for the first time.►Together with the study of fundamental physical characteristics of the 5d1 excited state of Pr3+, we provide additional data and discuss the practical potential of this system including critical discussion of the previously published hypothesis regarding scintillation mechanism of LPS:Pr.