Investigation of the luminescence, crystallographic and spatial resolution properties of LSO:Tb scintillating layers used for X-ray imaging applications

•We investigated Lu2SiO5:Tb scintillators for high spatial resolution X-ray imaging.•The crystallographic properties of the Lu2SiO5:Tb were studied vs. Tb content.•The Lu2SiO5:Tb composition was optimised for the highest scintillation production.•The Lu2SiO5:Tb spatial resolution performance was proved by MTF measurements.

In this work, a group of Lu2SiO5:Tb (LSO:Tb) scintillating layers with a Tb concentration between 8% and 19% were investigated by means of synchrotron and laboratory techniques. The scintillation efficiency measurements proved that the highest light yield is obtained for a Tb concentration equal to 15%. At higher concentration, quenching processes occur which lower the light emission. The analysis of the reciprocal space maps of the (082) (280) and (040) Bragg reflections showed that LSO:Tb epilayers are well adapted on YbSO substrates for all the investigated concentrations. The spatial resolution tests demonstrated the possibility to achieve a resolution of 1 μm with a 6 μm thick scintillating layer.