Co-doping of CeBr3 scintillator detectors for energy resolution enhancement

CeBr3 gamma-ray spectrometers are preferable to LaBr3:Ce ones for low-count-rate experiments because of their low intrinsic activity and consequently increased detection sensitivity. A drawback of CeBr3 is a nonoptimum energy resolution, i.e. 4% at 662 keV. Here we demonstrate that aliovalent co-doping techniques are effective to enhance the CeBr3 energy resolution to at least 3%. Such an enhancement is achieved because of a more proportional energy response of the scintillation.