Fabrication, optical and scintillation properties of transparent YAG:Ce ceramics

Highly transparent YAG:Ce ceramics (transmission of 72-82% for 2-mm-thick samples in 550-900 nm wavelength range) were fabricated by solid-state reactive sintering using a mixture of Ce2xY2-2xO3 (x = 0.001, 0.01, 0.03, and 0.05) and Al2O3 nanopowders synthesized by laser ablation with an additional round of pre-calcining before compaction. The synthesized YAG:Ce ceramic materials showed intense luminescence with a maximum at 525-545 nm. The measured absolute light yields of the synthesized YAG:Ce ceramics were 18-21 photon/MeV for 1-5 at.% Ce and 5 photon/MeV for 0.1 at.% Ce. The energy resolutions of the fabricated thin ceramic samples (2 mm) under 662 keV gamma ray were measured to be 10-15%. The decay curves of scintillations consisted of two components with the decay times depending on the Ce3+ concentration. The sample doped with 5 at.% of Ce exhibited the main fast component with 26 ns decay time. The measured data was compared to that of YAG:Ce and well-known CsI:Tl single crystal scintillators. The influence of dopant concentration on the optical, luminescence and scintillation properties was discussed.