Scintillation properties of YAlO3:Ce perovskite co-doped by Mg2+ions

The effect of Mg2+ co-doping on scintillation, luminescence, and optical properties of YAlO3:Ce perovskite was studied. Herein, a set of single-crystalline films with cerium content of 0.4% and various Mg concentrations ranging from 0 to 0.4% was grown by the liquid phase epitaxy. At increasing Mg content, the scintillation decays were gradually accelerated from 23 ns to less than 4 ns, however, at the expense of the light yield. At high Mg concentrations, the overlap of the 5d-4f(Ce3+) emission and charge-transfer absorption 2p(O2-)-4f(Ce4+) in the ultraviolet range became large and degraded scintillation properties. The low afterglow signal and independence of the light yield on the shaping time confirmed the low intensity of the delayed emission in the studied samples.