Fabrication and investigation of the effects of various gadolinium compounds on Ce³⁺-activated phosphate glasses for scintillation applications

Ce³⁺-activated phosphate-based glasses were fabricated for scintillation purposes following melt-quenching technique. Chemical compositions of the glasses were designed in mol. % ratio with formula (62P₂O₅:20Li₂CO₃:10X:5Al₂O₃:3CeBr₃ where X[dbnd]Gd₂O₃/GdF₃/GdCl₃/GdBr₃/GdI₃). The amorphous structure of the glasses was verified by the powder X-ray diffraction measurements. Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) measurements were carried out to study the structural properties of the fabricated glass samples. X-ray-induced luminescence and photoluminescence (PL) spectra were used to investigate the luminescence properties of the glasses. A broad PL excitation band was found for all prepared glasses that refers to Gd³⁺ and Ce³⁺ characteristic transitions. GdI₃ containing glass sample provided the optimum emission under X-ray and UV (308 nm) excitations peaking at 347 and 341 nm, respectively. The scintillation property of the GdI₃ containing glass was studied under 5.5 MeV α-particle from ²⁴¹Am radiation source and a clear alpha peak was observed with energy resolution of 35.3%. The shortest decay component of the glass sample was observed to be 27.9 ns, 30.7 ns and 29.12 ns under the α-particles, γ-ray, and 266 nm pulsed laser excitations, respectively. In conclusion, the GdI₃ prepared glass sample can be used for α -particles detection.