Luminescence and scintillation properties of Czochralski grown Pr³⁺ doped Li₆Y(BO₃)₃ single crystal

The Li₆Y(BO₃)₃:Pr³⁺, an alkali orthoborate compound have been synthesized as polycrystalline powders with different doping concentration of Pr³⁺ rare-earth as an activator. The transparent single crystal has also been grown in argon atmosphere by the Czochralski method with 1 mol. % of Pr³⁺ doping element. The grown crystal possesses a monoclinic structure with a space group of P2₁/c. The crystal has been cut and optically polished to study the luminescence properties with X-ray, UV, α-particles, and γ-ray excitations. The crystal has showed relaxed 4f¹5d-4f² emission at 309 nm along with characteristic 4f²-4f² transition emissions. The UV–Vis–NIR absorbance spectrum has been obtained in the range of 250–2000 nm. Above 300 nm the crystal has showed about 50% transmittance. The Commission International De I'Eclairage (CIE) chromaticity diagram is depicting the change in combined emission colors for different excitation positions. The scintillation properties of the crystal have been studied with γ-ray from ⁶⁰Co, α-particles from ²⁴¹Am and moderated thermal neutrons from a²⁵²Cf source. The pulse shape discrimination, obtained for γ-ray, α-particles, and moderated thermal neutrons has shown the potential of this scintillator for thermal neutron detection.