Luminescence and Scintillation Properties of a CeBr $_{3}$ Single Crystal

Crystal growth, luminescence, and scintillation properties of a CeBr
₃
crystal are presented. The crystal was grown with Bridgman method using two-zone transparent furnace and cut to Oslash10 times 10 mm
³
. The investigation of luminescence and scintillation properties of the CeBr
₃
was performed under the excitation by ultraviolet and gamma-rays at room temperature. The emission spectrum of the CeBr
₃
was observed in the range of near ultraviolet to violet, which is due to the 5d rarr 4f transition of Ce
³⁺
. The decay time of the Ce
³⁺
emission was measured to be approximately 20 ns. The energy resolution of the CeBr
₃
single crystal was obtained to be 4.9% for the
¹³⁷
Cs 662 keV gamma-rays. The relative signal of the CeBr
₃
crystal by the
¹³⁷
Cs gamma-rays is about three times higher than that of a CsI:Tl crystal when a bi-alkali PMT was used. The nonproportionality in the gamma-ray energy of the crystal was also measured. The study showed that the CeBr
₃
crystal is the promising candidate for the PET application. The CeBr
₃
crystal with high light output and fast decay time affords its use for the particle detection in a high counting rate environment such as nuclear and high-energy physics.