Effect of cerium doping on optical and scintillation properties of transparent YAG ceramic

Cerium doped transparent YAG ceramics 0.15-2 at% cerium) were prepared using nano-powder technique and vacuum sintering. The effective solubility limit of cerium in YAG was found to lie between 1.0 and 1.5 at%. The PL intensity increases with the cerium content and attains a maximum for 1.0 at% doping. Lifetime of PL is not very sensitive to cerium content, however, a slight decrease in the life-time from 66 ns to 55 ns was observed with increase in cerium content from 0.15 to 2.0 at%. This decrease in PL intensity and life-time is attributed to concentration quenching for the YAG ceramics with cerium content higher than 1.0 at%. A red-shift in the PL peak position was observed and attributed to the local symmetry distortion in YAG matrix.