Survey of recent research results for new fluor materials

There is worldwide interest in the use of fluor materials that emit visible light when exposed to ionizing radiation. Typically, fluors are used as components in high performance electromagnetic calorimeters, down-hole oil well loggers, temperature sensors for equipment with high speed moving parts, and beam positioning systems for large particle accelerators. A candidate fluor should have a large fluorescence efficiency, small reduction in output as a function of exposure, intense visible fluorescence spectrum, large material density, and small prompt fluorescence decay time. Over the last few years, new floor materials have been located by organizations such as Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the Department of Defense. These new fluors, such as YAlO3:Ce, YSiO5:Ce, GdSiO5:Ce, Y2O2S doped with Tb, Pr, and Eu, and Gd2O2S doped with Tb, Pr, and Eu, show a great deal of promise for use in the applications listed above. This paper will present a summary of fluor research completed by the authors over the last ten years. These results will be used to establish a fluor characterization program at the Acadiana Research Laboratory (ARL) that will move it to the front of this developing technology.