Development of inorganic scintillators

A review is presented on different lines of scintillator research in relation to the different applications and requirements. Applications of inorganic scintillators are found in very different fields. Often the scintillator requirements are correspondingly different. In a number of cases there is a strong interest in scintillators with a fast response and a high light yield. E.g. for positron emission tomography the materials Lu2SiO5(Ce) and LuAlO3(Ce), both with a relatively high density, are studied. For small gamma cameras with a good position resolution, e.g. for emission mammography, the less dense material YAlO3(Ce) is of interest. For thermal-neutron detection neutron-gamma ray discrimination is occasionally very important. Here BaLiF3, with both a very fast and a relatively slow luminescence component, and BaLiF3(Ce) are interesting new materials. And finally, for high-energy physics the crucial combination is a fast response and a short radiation length. Here all attention is focussed on the dense, high-atomic-number material PbWO4, a scintillator which has a very low light yield.