Influence of SrF2-doping in AlN ceramics on scintillation and dosimeter properties

In this study, we synthesized undoped AlN and SrF2-doped AlN (AlN-SrF2) ceramics by Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS), and we characterized their optical, scintillation and dosimeter properties. The prepared undoped AlN ceramic had gray color and visually non-transparent whereas, with an addition of SrF2, the transparency improved and became translucent. The measured in-line transmittance was approximately 0.2% at wavelengths longer than 500 nm. While the addition of SrF2 decreased the scintillation intensity, the decay time was significantly fastened, which is a great advantage for fast photon counting-based measurements. Both the thermally-stimulated luminescence (TSL) and optically-stimulated luminescence (OSL) showed good linear response from the milli-gray range to over 10 Gy. The sensitivity seems to decrease by an addition of SrF2 as it suppresses structural defect centers which are responsible for dosimeter properties. However, the main TSL glow peak position shifts to higher temperature with the addition of SrF2, which indicates that inclusion of SrF2 improves the TSL signal stability.