Synthesis and luminescence properties of Tb doped LaBGeO5 and GdBGeO5 glass scintillators

Borogermanate glasses show promise as scintillators due to their ability to incorporate high levels of heavy metal oxides without excessive loss of luminescent output intensity. Heavy metal oxide scintillating glasses of 50GeO2-25B2O3-(25-x)La2O3/Gd2O3-xTb2O3 (x = 1,2,3,4) with the same stoichiometric composition of crystalline Tb doped LaBGeO5/GdBGeO5 were synthesized via the melt-quench method. Three times of higher light output under gamma ray excitation was observed from Tb doped GdBGeO5 based glass compared to LaBGeO5 glass due to efficient energy transfer between Gd-Tb pairs and higher luminescence efficiency in the GdBGeO5 glasses. The potential to form LaBGeO5/GdBGeO5 glass ceramic scintillators was also discussed and preliminarily investigated.