On improvement of scintillation characteristics of Gd2SiO5:Ce crystals by thermal treatment

Effects of thermal treatment of Gd2SiO5:Ce crystals at T≈0.7Tm under low pressure on their optical and scintillation properties were studied. It is shown that thermal treatment in the atmosphere with the chemical potential of ∼40 J mol−1 decreases the absorption in the UV region and substantially improves the crystal transparency in the region of intrinsic emission peaked at 427 nm.Narrowing of the emission band due to suppression of the long-wave component in the range of 520-560 nm, light output increase by 7-10%, decrease of the emission decay time, and improvement of thermal stability of the luminescence yield were also observed. Transformations of the ensemble of structural defects in cerium-activated gadolinium oxyorthosilicate crystals are under discussion.