Light output enhancement of scintillators by using mixed-scale microstructures

Design and implementation of the first proton beam transport line in VEGA-3 Petawatt laser system

Laser-Plasma ion acceleration is acquiring importance on a daily basis due to incipient applicability in certain research fields. However, the energy and divergence control of these brilliant sources can be considered a bottleneck in the development of some applications. In this work, we present the commissioning of a compact proton beamline based on a triplet of quadrupoles dedicated to focus and collect short and energetic pulses, open to the user community. The focused proton beam characterization has been carried out by imaging of scintillation detectors with different particle filters. Experimental results have been compared with numerical simulations performed with Monte Carlo code (MCNP6) and TSTEP that have been used to retrieve the deposited energy, the particle tracking, and the particle distribution in different focal configurations, respectively. Charges of nC (∼ [Formula: see text] protons with energies up to 17.25 MeV) have been measured at the focal planes reducing the beam to spot sizes of a few millimetres in RMS (root mean square). The percentage fluctuation of the transported charges values has been studied. Finally, the beam rigidity has been measured by transverse moving of the quadrupoles and subsequent beam centroid shift, allowing to cross correlate the deflected energy with the energy ranges resulting from the filtering process.

Bright Innovations: Review of Next-Generation Advances in Scintillator Engineering

This review focuses on modern scintillators, the heart of ionizing radiation detection with applications in medical diagnostics, homeland security, research, and other areas. The conventional method to improve their characteristics, such as light output and timing properties, consists of improving in material composition and doping, etc., which are intrinsic to the material. On the contrary, we review recent advancements in cutting-edge approaches to shape scintillator characteristics via photonic and metamaterial engineering, which are extrinsic and introduce controlled inhomogeneity in the scintillator's surface or volume. The methods to be discussed include improved light out-coupling using photonic crystal (PhC) coating, dielectric architecture modification producing the Purcell effect, and meta-materials engineering based on energy sharing. These approaches help to break traditional bulk scintillators' limitations, e.g., to deal with poor light extraction efficiency from the material due to a typically large refractive index mismatch or improve timing performance compared to bulk materials. In the Outlook section, modern physical phenomena are discussed and suggested as the basis for the next generations of scintillation-based detectors and technology, followed by a brief discussion on cost-effective fabrication techniques that could be scalable.

Cryogenic Scintillation Performance of Cs4PbI6 Perovskite Single Crystals

All-inorganic Cs₄PbI₆ single crystals (SCs) is emerging scintillators for radiation detection. In this study, we report on the X-ray scintillation properties of Cs₄PbI₆ SCs at the temperature range of 50-290 K. The temperature-dependent radioluminescence (RL) spectrum and decay time were investigated. It was found that the RL spectra show very pronounced temperature-dependent changes in the overall shape. The RL intensity increases with a decrease in the temperature under X-ray excitation. The emission bands at 318, 360, and 554 nm are attributed to the near-band-edge emission in Cs₄PbI₆ SCs, the ³P₁ → ¹S₀ transition of the Pb²⁺ ion, and the emission of δ-CsPbI₃ aggregates dispersed in the Cs₄PbI₆ SC matrix, respectively. With decreasing temperature, the fast and slow decay times tend to slow down and are estimated to be 46.0 ns (33.22%) and 820 ns (66.78%) at 50 K, which are far superior to that of the common cryogenic scintillator. These cryogenic scintillation characteristics of Cs₄PbI₆ SCs demonstrate its potential for cryogenic detection.