Sub-nanosecond nuclear half-life and time-of-flight measurements with CeBr3

CeBr3 is a new fast scintillator with timing and energy resolution similar to LaBr3:Ce. The excellent timing resolution, measured here to be 93 ps at 511 keV for 1 cm3 crystals, naturally lends itself to direct electronic measurements of excited nuclear state lifetimes in the nanosecond and sub-nanosecond range. To demonstrate this, half-lives of a 1.40 ns isomer in 152Sm and 537 ps isomer in 177Hf were directly measured using the delayed coincidence technique. With its fast timing, high light output and high efficiency, the possibility of CeBr3 as a time-of-flight PET detector was also explored through γ-ray time-of-flight measurements.