Microstructures and optical properties of 6Li, Ce:YAG ceramics for thermal neutron detection

The microstructures and optical properties of 5%6Li: Ce3xY3(1-x)Al5O12 (x = 0.001, 0.003, 0.05, 0.01, 0.02) transparent ceramics prepared by solid-state reaction and vacuum sintering were investigated in this paper. The results revealed that the grain size of 6Li,Ce:YAG ceramics at this ration conditions is 4 μm-20 μm. With the doping of Ce3+, the transmittance of 6Li,Ce:YAG ceramics decreases from 82% (x = 0.001) to 67% (x = 0.02) at 800 nm, and the intensity of transmittance peak at 340 nm and 460 nm increases. The emission peaks show red shift at around 530 nm with the increasing of Ce3+ concentration.