Scintillation properties of Yb-doped YAlO in the temperature range from 4.2 to 175 K

Yasumune, Takashi  ; Kurihara, Masakazu*; Maehata, Keisuke*; Ishibashi, Kenji*; Yoshikawa, Akira*

Yb-doped yttrium-aluminum perovskites (YAP:Yb) are expected to be scintillator materials with high light yield and short scintillation decay time because of their charge transfer (CT) luminescence. Since the CT luminescence of Yb is strongly affected by thermal quenching, to use YAP:Yb as a scintillator material, it is necessary to measure the scintillation properties of YAP:Yb at low temperatures. Since it is difficult to detect scintillation light at low temperatures, scintillation properties of YAP:Yb characterized by irradiating with -rays or other radiation below 100 K have not been reported. We conducted measurements of the temperature dependence of emission wavelength spectrum of YAP:Yb by irradiating with -rays from a Sr/Y source in the temperature range from 4.2 K to 175 K. The emission peak at around 340-350 nm and 500-520 nm were observed in the emission wavelength spectra. The light yield of YAP:Yb was characterized by using an avalanche photodiode in detection of 662 keV -rays from a Cs source in the temperature range from 50 K to 175 K. The light yield increased with decreasing temperature and reached 11,000 photons/MeV at a temperature of 4.2 K.