Enhanced light extraction efficiency for glass scintillator coupled with two-dimensional photonic crystal structure

•We propose a 2D photonic crystal structure to enhance the light extraction of scintillator.•This structure is a periodic array of hexagonally close-packed polystyrene nanosphere.•The maximum enhancement of extraction efficiency reaches 25%.•The enhancement shows angular-dependence and wavelength-dependence.

In order to improve the light extraction efficiency for Tb3+-doped glass scintillator, we propose an effective approach by incorporating a two-dimensional photonic crystal structure: a periodic array of hexagonally close-packed polystyrene nanosphere monolayer onto glass surface. The in-plane vector for the light suffering total internal reflection is changed into light cone resulting light emission out of glass. The optimized diameter of polystyrene nanosphere is 500 nm and the maximum enhancement of extraction efficiency reaches 25%. The enhancement shows angular dependence from the far-filed distribution pattern.