Future hosts for fast and high light output cerium-doped scintillator

In recent years many new scintillating compounds were proposed, however, there is still need for new fast and high light output scintillators. Prompted by this demand, we have studied a set of 28 crystal structures of known scintillators and phosphors doped by cerium, terbium and europium. The aim of this communication is to identify the crystallographic properties of contemporary scintillator responsible for their high light output. We have found that high light output of a scintillator is positively correlated with the difference between the sum of the ionic radii of dopant and ligand, and the bond length of metal-ligand in the host lattice. This correlation is examined for various hosts and their band gaps. The possible influence on carrier capture by dopants and on relaxation of the lattice in these scintillators is discussed. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.